


Wondered at the Change

by AngWrites



Series: Where You Go, I Will Go [1]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Behind the Scenes, Canon - Book, Canon Compliant, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everyone loves hobbits, I have been writing this in my head for 19 years so dear god I hope it's good, M/M, Slow Burn, and yet I'm still going to make tolkien spin in his grave like a rotisserie chicken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 43,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22668478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngWrites/pseuds/AngWrites
Summary: How Gimli and Legolas slowly changed their minds about each other, or, a Gimli/Legolas annotated journey through Lord of the Rings that no one asked for. Featuring arguments and misunderstandings, kindness and growth, and the Fellowship growing close, learning about each other, and becoming a found family.I plan for this to be a three-part series, but it's my hope that this is a good beginning that stands alone well.
Relationships: Gimli (Son of Glóin)/Legolas Greenleaf
Series: Where You Go, I Will Go [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1630768
Comments: 46
Kudos: 178





	1. Regrettable Misunderstandings

**Author's Note:**

> _Legolas was away much among the Galadhrim, and after the first night he did not sleep with the other companions, though he returned to eat and talk with them. Often he took Gimli with him when he went abroad in the land, and the others wondered at this change._
> 
> _\--The Fellowship of the Ring_
> 
> Please note that due to its nature, this fic presumes fairly comprehensive knowledge of the timeline and events of the books, though I've tried to provide quotes and references which should help to place each scene and section so you don't get lost. There are a few things inspired by movie imagery, and a few other things that have been changed to reflect some more modern values, but for the most part this is rooted in Tolkien's writing.

_‘Alas! alas!’ cried Legolas, and in his fair Elvish face there was great distress. ‘The tidings that I was sent to bring must now be told. They are not good, but only here have I learned how evil they may seem to this company. Sméagol, who is now called Gollum, has escaped.’_

_‘Escaped?’ cried Aragorn. ‘That is ill news indeed. We shall all rue it bitterly, I fear. How came the folk of Thranduil to fail in their trust?’_

_‘Not through lack of watchfulness,’ said Legolas; ‘but perhaps through over-kindliness. And we fear that the prisoner had aid from others, and that more is known of our doings than we could wish. We guarded this creature day and night, at Gandalf’s bidding, much though we wearied of the task. But Gandalf bade us hope still for his cure, and we had not the heart to keep him ever in dungeons under the earth, where he would fall back into his old black thoughts.’_

Legolas had expected to be called in to see his father weeks ago. He had not done as well at hiding his emotions as he should have, for despite long years of practice, he had never in all those years felt so impatient and angry. It was showing in his work; it had begun to do so days and days ago. He did not want to have this conversation, but he also did not know what on earth could be occupying his father’s time to the point where he did not notice. He was doing nearly as little as Legolas himself, after all.

When the summons came, Legolas went without argument. After all, it wasn’t as though he could claim to be busy; he wasn’t. None of them were.

The first thing his father did was apologize for the oversight, which Legolas first appreciated, but then he said how much there was to do at all times, how the war creeping in from all directions had occupied his attention.

At this, Legolas seethed; how could he say that? When he and the other Elves of Mirkwood were locked up tight in their fortress, only venturing out into the world to take care of the bands of Orcs that threatened their borders, before retreating? When there was so, so much more they could be doing?

And so he set his teeth, and held his head high, and asked Thranduil why he thought something was wrong.

His father sighed. “You were furious when you had to stay home during the Battle of the Five Armies,” he said. Legolas did not know how he could be so sure; he hadn’t said a word of complaint. He'd accepted his charge to stay in Mirkwood while his father and armies marched on Erebor. If he’d been angry, and even angrier when he heard about the surge of Orcs and how Elves had fought alongside the Dwarves, he had not shown it. 

“It was my duty to protect the forest,” Legolas said, instead of putting voice to any of this.

“But you've been upset ever since,” his father countered. And he wasn’t wrong; it had happened over seventy years ago, but that was no time at all to Elves.

“I don’t know why you would think that,” Legolas said stiffly. “I have not complained of my duties.” The few duties he did have, he could have said, but did not. Besides the occasional fight against raiding parties of Orcs, he had been put in charge of the group guarding the recently-captured Gollum, a task of importance—but its importance did not make it more interesting. Trapped in a fortress, guarding a creature who flinched and shirked away from all wholesome things, wailing and gnashing his teeth and swearing at his captors, no matter how kind they were; though his words were proud, this time, he did not wonder how his father knew that he found this duty tedious.

Thranduil sighed, studying him. He did not need to use words for Legolas to know he was wondering what had happened to him. He knew they both missed the days of cheer in Mirkwood, when singing came more easily than speaking and Legolas could have easily expressed what was wrong. If he had asked, Legolas would have given an answer as to what happened. The answer was war. War happened, and there was no escaping it. Hiding from it only made it worse.

“Complaint is not the same as discussion,” his father said at last, gently this time. “Perhaps if you talk about it, we can find a way to fix it.”

Legolas doubted that, but he hesitated anyway, wondering if speaking his thoughts would change anything. “I do wish there was more for me to do,” he admitted finally. “There are is so much trouble outside of our borders. I want to do more to help; the duties I have do not demand my full attention.”

“Keeping watch over Gollum is part of that,” Thranduil said, confirming Legolas’s fear that saying something would change nothing. “You cannot shirk that duty.”

“I will not, of course,” said Legolas, repressing a frustrated sigh. He _had_ not, so far. Why would that change? “I only wish for a more active role.”

“If such a thing becomes possible, I will consider it,” his father told him. “Will that suffice?”

Legolas should have agreed and left, keeping his thoughts on that offer to himself. Likely he simply meant going on more patrols, while changing nothing about their strategy. But his father seemed to be in earnest, so he tried one more time. “There is nothing else? No other need? War marches on all of our borders, and I am still to wait for further assignment?”

His father looked at him long, perhaps wondering what the source of his restlessness was; yet Legolas had no more words to explain it, and Thranduil did not ask. He could see his father’s attention slipping, perhaps to all the other vastly important matters of the realm.

“I must think on it,” Thranduil said. “There are many things to consider.”

“Of course,” Legolas said. He smoothed his face into the mask of serenity that he’d been wearing for months now. “Is that all? I was planning to go look in on our prisoner.”

Yes, of course,” said his father. “Just be careful with him. Mithrandir said it was important.”

“I know, Father,” said Legolas, bowing politely. He winced; it was far too polite, and his face had gone rigid, but Thranduil’s attention had truly slipped, for he did not notice. Not knowing whether to be relieved or furious, he turned and left the room, now fully seething.

Because the truth was, he hadn’t been this angry in hundreds of years. He strode through the halls, and only two thousand years of self-control kept him from punching one of the stone walls. He was growing tired of being treated like a child. Be careful with Gollum, indeed! He felt sorry for the poor creature, and had taken to allowing him to climb the trees a bit, but he always set a guard. And they kept a close watch. He wondered if his father had even looked at Sméagol—Gollum, he supposed it was now, though it felt cruel to think of him by that name—since he'd first been captured.

Legolas understood the importance of the small tasks he'd been assigned so far, but it didn't make them any more interesting. And his father was right: he'd very much wanted to go to Erebor. He’d still been stung over the incident with the Dwarves, and shooting a few Orcs in the head would have done him good, he felt. If he’d accidentally hit a Dwarf in the eye (if only to get through their thick, obstinate skulls) once or twice, so much the better.

He'd never met many Dwarves until Thorin and his company showed up, though he'd heard plenty of stories. And yet, their rudeness and impudence had been appalling beyond anything he'd expected.

He'd been so appalled and angry, in fact, that Thranduil refused to let him anywhere near the Dwarves. And when they escaped! It was horrifying, to say the least. Someone should have been keeping better watch on them. He'd tried to hint that maybe he should have had a hand in their final fate, but his father had only looked stern and told him that things had worked out for the best. For the best! Maybe, but that was no excuse for their behavior. Dwarves!

Of course, Legolas hated Orcs more. There was nothing more vile under the sun, and there wasn’t much that couldn’t be solved by slaughtering as many of them as possible in a big battle. But he wasn't allowed to go. Something about not being able to maintain proper diplomatic dignity around the Dwarves, and besides, Mirkwood needed protecting. He loved the forest and the company of his fellow Elves, so he had swallowed his protests and done his duty, but he’d been wholly tired of it by the time the warriors returned. He wanted to be doing something more interesting.

The increasing numbers of Orcs in Mirkwood weren't helping, either. Sorties and ambushes in the woods couldn’t distract him forever. The kingdom was still safe, but for how long? Legolas wanted to do something about it, something active and useful, instead of simply defending the borders as they shrunk further and further inwards and finally disappeared. His father’s strategies would lean only to ruin, yet nothing he could say would change his mind.

Still, even fighting off an Orc attack might at least help him feel useful. He was so on edge, and he felt helpless.

Later he regretted ever having this thought.

But for now, he merely sighed. It was a nice day, he decided, and he needed to get out of the cave. He decided to gather a group of guards and take Gollum outside. Maybe among the trees he could get his mind off the growing darkness and his pervasive restlessness.  
  


The attack was swift and deadly. Legolas handled it as well as possible, managing to lead some of the guard to drive the Orcs off, but the guards who remained behind all perished, and Gollum disappeared. Legolas led the Elves on a hunt, and would have gone all the way to Dol Guldur to recapture his charge, but wiser heads prevailed. “A great evil yet lies on that place,” they all said, and Legolas gave in. He had no true desire to go there, but guilt pushed him farther than was probably wise.

“Do not blame yourself,” Thranduil said. He was not angry with Legolas at all; he seemed only to be very tired. For that Legolas was grateful, but in the absence of blame, he was inclined to be even more frustrated with himself. “Gollum is very cunning, and there are still many spies of the enemy in these woods. You did well, Legolas. Do not feel regret for pity and kindness.”

Legolas shook his head. “I should have been less careless,” he said. “This was my only charge, and I failed at it.”

“Do not say that which you know to be untrue,” Thranduil rebuked him. “You were very careful. If this is the worst mistake you ever make, you will be very lucky indeed. You did not err on the side of cruelty, and that is nothing to be ashamed of.”

Legolas wasn't entirely convinced, but he knew it wasn't worth arguing over. “What shall we do now?”

Thranduil sighed. “Mithrandir must be informed,” he said.

“He travels far, and we have no knowledge of his location or movements,” Legolas said cautiously, not daring to hope.

“Then someone will need to go to Rivendell, and inform Elrond,” Thranduil said firmly. “He has long withstood the enemy, and has many dealings with Mithrandir. He may know what to do, or how to reach the wizard.”

Legolas felt something rise in his chest, and the words came out before he could think them through: “I will go.”

Thranduil looked at him in surprise. “Legolas...”

“Father, this is my fault,” he said impatiently. “I should take responsibility for it. I will not mind the journey.”

“Yes, but I need you here, Legolas.”

“For what?” he countered. “This was my main responsibility, whether I succeeded or failed. In failure I must still own the task; and even with Gollum gone, it is not finished, and it is my responsibility to see it through. There are others to patrol the borders of our kingdom. And it will not be any more dangerous for me to go than anyone else.” It would also get him out of Mirkwood and into the wide world, but he refrained from saying so.

Thranduil must have seen it in his face, however, because he relented. “Very well. Just...promise me you won't do anything reckless.”

“I never have,” Legolas said, careful to keep his face calm and blank.

“Only because others stopped you,” Thranduil muttered. Then: “You'll have to go alone,” he said aloud before Legolas could argue. “I cannot spare anyone else.”

Legolas winced. It was partially his fault his father was short on warriors. “Very well,” he said. “I will leave tomorrow morning.”

Thranduil nodded. “Many dangers lie on the road ahead, Legolas,” he said. "Move swiftly, and secretly, if you can.”

Another thing Legolas didn’t need to be told, but with a great task ahead of him, he felt much less resentment at the words. “I will.”

His father sighed, looking at him carefully, in the way that always stirred in him a touch of unease. “I wonder if you are walking into more than you expect."

“Someone must do this,” was all Legolas could think to say in response. He was already wondering what he should take with him, which way he should go, and whether Rivendell would live up to all he’d heard of it. The road ahead was long indeed.

He was finally going to leave Mirkwood. Perhaps it was too much to hope that Lord Elrond would allow him to be of more aid in the war; but it was a beginning.

  
_‘Then about a year ago a messenger came to Dáin, but not from Moria – from Mordor: a horseman in the night, who called Dáin to his gate. The Lord Sauron the Great, so he said, wished for our friendship. Rings he would give for it, such as he gave of old. And he asked urgently concerning hobbits, of what kind they were, and where they dwelt. “For Sauron knows,” said he, “that one of these was known to you on a time.”_

_..._

_‘Heavy have the hearts of our chieftains been since that night. We needed not the fell voice of the messenger to warn us that his words held both menace and deceit; for we knew already that the power that has re-entered Mordor has not changed, and ever it betrayed us of old. Twice the messenger has returned, and has gone unanswered. The third and last time, so he says, is soon to come, before the ending of the year._

Gimli pounded angrily at the iron before him. Iron nails! It was the most boring thing he could possibly be doing, but right now he was too frustrated to work with anything more delicate. It was already September and they still hadn't done anything about the mysterious horseman who had appeared at the gates of the Lonely Mountain. Gimli kept telling his father that they had to tell someone, but Glóin had merely looked troubled. “I am not the one to decide whether Dáin calls for aid,” his father had said.

“Yes, but this concerns us too,” Gimli argued. “Surely we can't sit by and do nothing. We all know this horseman can mean nothing good.” As sometimes happened when he was preoccupied with many thoughts, his hands made the sign in _iglishmêk_ that translated in the Common Tongue roughly to _danger ahead, be cautious but ready to act._

Glóin frowned at his hands, but did not comment. He knew that Gimli would normally be more deliberate in his use of the language that the Dwarves used in the workroom when there was much noise, in the mines when speech was dangerous, or around strangers when they needed to silently communicate as deliberately. It was only a because of his comfort that his hands now spoke his inner thoughts. “And who do we call on? We have heard nothing from Gandalf recently. The Beornings have done all they can to aid us. And Balin has sent no word for years.”

Gimli hesitated, wondering if the idea in his head was too obvious. Then he sighed, deciding someone had to say it. “What about the Elves?”

A shadow of anger crossed his father's face. He had never quite forgiven the Elven King for his time in the dungeons of Mirkwood.

“Not them,” said Gimli hastily, making a sign of deference. He'd heard the story many times, and he wasn't sure he'd forgiven them either. The old offense had technically been mended years ago, and the Dwarves had some dealings with Mirkwood, but the Elves always seemed aloof and pretentious on the rare occasions when Gimli did deal with them. “I meant Lord Elrond. Rivendell.”

Glóin looked startled. “I should have thought of that myself,” he said. “It has been too long. I will suggest it to Dáin. But do not expect a quick answer. He will not send Dwarves on the long journey to Rivendell unless he deems the need great indeed.”

Gimli had to be satisfied with that. But it had been weeks and weeks since the messenger had come a second time, with the promise of a third, and the year was waning to a close. How long could they prolong this? What action would make Dáin decide the need was great enough?

If he was really honest with himself, he also wanted to set off for Rivendell himself. It was a long-held desire, to see the Last Homely House, especially after being denied the chance to see it in person on the journey to Erebor (his parents both insisted he was too young to come along, though this was ridiculous—he’d been in his sixties, only a three years away from being old enough to set off on his own, and he could have been a valuable asset), and then hearing all his father's stories about it. 

But that wasn't all, of course it wasn't. It was merely an incentive, a faint silver lining in a black cloud of worry and fear. Things grew steadily worse, and he felt helpless to fix them, shut up here with a bar of iron, unable to convince his elders to move, to do something. Exactly how great did the need have to be before Dáin consented to call for aid? Wasn't it great enough already?

The clanging of his hammer sounded in his ears, and it soothed some of his frustration. Sometimes he just needed to hit something. Especially when his father was shut up in a council of Dwarves that would probably end up deciding nothing. It was a pity there were no Orcs around to kill; it would probably be more productive, and much more satisfying.

A shadow appeared at the door of the forge, and Gimli turned to look. "Father!" he said. "That was faster than I thought it would be. What did you decide?"

“We're going to Rivendell,” said Glóin.

Gimli set his hammer down. “We?”

“You're coming with me,” said Glóin. “It has been many years since I was able to make a journey so long by myself, and it will be good for you.”

Gimli fought to restrain the grin that was threatening to break over his face. He held his hands tightly to keep them from giving away his mood “Good,” he said gruffly, turning away to clean up his work area. “It’s about time you decided something.”

Glóin laughed. “Don't pretend not to be excited,” he said. “I can tell you can't wait to go.”

Gimli permitted himself a smile. “It’s about time you took me along,” he said. He even managed not to sound bitter about it.

Glóin raised an eyebrow, but he was smiling. “I am excited to get back on the road,” he admitted. Then he sighed, and signed _danger, be cautious but ready,_ as if in a peace offering. “Though I fear the journey ahead may be longer than even our darkest imaginations.”

  
The journey through the darkest parts of Mirkwood was long, but Legolas did not try to cut through them directly. He had been up and down the Forest River many times, and though it was an unpleasant task rowing upstream, he preferred it to venturing into the deepness of the forest. Much as he loved the trees in all their seasons and moods—as often as he would walk under the beeches in starlight and daylight, in golden sun and whispery, shadowy night—the darkness was stifling, and it saddened him deeply. Woods were not meant to be so dark and angry. 

Given time, the Elves could have fought that blackness, and drawn out the rotten anger of the trees like poison from a wound, leaving only light filtered through green leaves and the whisper of the wind. But time ran short in these days, even for the Elves. And with enemies pushing at the borders, it was all they could do to protect what was left, let alone what had been lost long ago.

He had to double around the edge of the forest, another long journey, but he did not meet any Orcs and passed safely through the land of the Beornings. He'd only known of Beorn, and never met him, but he found the lands to be pleasant and wholesome. He could not stay long, however, and soon crossed the River Anduin to take the High Pass through the Misty Mountains.

Though he traveled quickly, it was mid-October when he reached Rivendell at last. Lord Elrond welcomed him warmly, but Legolas soon discovered that as beautiful and peaceful as the Last Homely House was, even in these times, it was currently in an uproar. When he told Elrond he had grave news, he fixed him with a clear, stern gaze that reminded Legolas strongly of his father, though he perceived some hidden strength even greater than that of Thranduil. It was quite possibly the most intimidating thing he'd ever encountered.

“Exactly how grave is it?” said Elrond.

Legolas hesitated, then decided to be as direct as possible. “Gollum has escaped,” he said. “I—”

“It can wait,” Elrond said, cutting him off. “This is indeed news, and soon you will tell me the whole story, Legolas son of Thranduil, but currently there are matters of more importance at hand.”

“What matters?” said Legolas curiously. There was much darkness in the world, and though he guessed at its origin, he had a feeling Elrond knew the whole story, and he greatly wished to know it as well.

Elrond sighed. “I cannot reveal much, though I guess you will learn everything in time. But I can say that the Nine Riders are at large—”

“Alas! The world has grown dark indeed!” Legolas cried out in surprise.

“It will grow darker yet,” said Elrond grimly.

“But why have they emerged?”

“That I cannot say,” Elrond said. “But we know whom they are chasing, and we must send out riders of our own against them.”

“Are there any still in the world who can openly do so?”

“There are a few Elf-Lords of Rivendell who can and will,” said Elrond, but his voice was tight and worried. “But I will attend to that. You have traveled long. For now, take your rest here, and I will summon you to hear what happened to Gollum.”

“Very well,” said Legolas. He found, to his slight shame, that it was something of a relief to discover that there were more things, greater things, than what he alone was involved with. Yet he was also desperate to know more, to learn what dangers there were in the world, no matter how troubling they might be.

Thus Legolas spent many long days in Rivendell, enjoying the songs and poetry of the House of Elrond, but with a shadow in his heart, and a growing threat in his mind that made him deeply anxious. All was not well with the world—and he wanted to be a part of it, more than he ever had before.

It was several days before he found out he wasn't the only one who'd traveled to Rivendell recently. A few days after his arrival, a pair of Dwarves turned up in Rivendell as well, and he discovered their presence entirely by accident. He'd never expected to see such beards in Rivendell, attached to two Dwarves calmly sitting down the table and taking no notice of him!

The Elves in Rivendell looked at him oddly when he expressed his dismay. “Lord Elrond has long been a friend of the Dwarves,” they told him. “They oppose the Enemy, and fight him on their own borders as we do. The elder one, Glóin, was among those who recaptured the Lonely Mountain from the dragon Smaug.”

“He was one of them?” Legolas said in shock. “What is he doing here?”

“What do you have against him?” the other Elves said in surprise. “Are you not grateful they took back the mountain, and made safe that part of the world?”

“Perhaps,” stammered Legolas, feeling as though he'd been caught off his guard—an odd feeling, considering he hadn't known it was even possible. “But they behaved abominably in Mirkwood, and insulted my father. Had I known he was coming—” he stopped when he realized he was being looked at oddly.

“You may hear a different story from him,” was all anyone would say. And they seemed to have no use for his objections. “Those days are long past,” they said also. “We have much greater concerns.” Many welcomed Glóin as an old friend, and as Legolas was a guest in Lord Elrond's house and did not wish to cause an uproar, he resolved to simply avoid him.

This strategy worked, for a time.

  
Rivendell, Gimli decided, was very nice, but entirely too full of Elves.

Not that they weren't all right, in their own way. His father seemed to get along with them just fine, but then, he'd had years of practice unraveling the exchange of mystic high phrases that seemed to pass for conversation, and the fact that they seemed more likely to burst into song than to speak at all.

To Gimli, it was entirely strange. And they were overly obsessed with trees.

But it was a beautiful place, if you did like trees, and very relaxing. Nevertheless, a dark cloud was growing, and through the singing, he could sense an undercurrent of fear and anticipation. When he brought it up to his father, however, Glóin merely shook his head.

"Lord Elrond seems to have plans of his own," he said. "I believe we shall soon find out what is behind all of this, but he delays it for his own reasons."

"Typical Elves," Gimli said. "Must be dramatic about it, or not tell us at all."

Glóin gave him a look. "You seem to know a lot about Elves, for someone who's dealt with them very little, and never at all with Elrond's people."

Gimli blinked, taken aback but not abashed by these words. "You're the one who keeps going on about being kept in a dungeon for no reason at all," he pointed out. He did not sign as he would have at home; he was tense, and his hands had been still ever since they reached Rivendell.

"That was in Mirkwood, not here. You'd do well to pay attention, and mind your tongue."

"Well, I heard one of the Mirkwood Elves is here," Gimli said, now angry for reasons he couldn't articulate. "I can barely tell them all apart, but I think I know who it is—I keep seeing him lurking around corners, glaring at me." Many of Elrond’s people were brown-skinned like the Elves of Mirkwood and like Gimli himself, and indeed they did look similar in other ways, but he thought he recognized the clothing worn by Elves in Mirkwood. They liked to blend in with the trees, Gimli knew; the Elves of Rivendell instead wore rich colors, not seeming to have the same need. But anyway, no other Elf had a reason to give Gimli such looks.

"I'm sure he won't do anything out of hand in Elrond's house," Glóin said. "And once we find out what exactly is going on, we'll have bigger things to worry about."

"This is easier to focus on," Gimli grumbled, and his father hid a smile behind his enormous white beard.

“Just avoid him, for now. And I say again that you’d do well to mind what you say about Lord Elrond. He has long been a friend to us.”

Gimli took the rebuke about Elrond to heart, but the rest of his father’s advice was easier said than done. For one thing, it was hard to ignore the Elf he wanted to avoid, now that he had spotted him among the other Elves. More importantly, however, Gimli wasn’t even sure what exactly he was supposed to be doing here at all. Everyone seemed to be biding their time, waiting for something, but no one seemed to know what—and the mix of boredom and anticipation was setting his teeth on edge.

His father, on the other hand, was entirely unaffected. He seemed perfectly happy to sit in front of the fire with Bilbo, smoking his pipe and exchanging stories. In years past, Gimli would have been delighted to listen to the hobbit who featured so largely in the tales of his uncles and cousins, but Glóin and Bilbo had seen each other so recently, before Bilbo came to Rivendell permanently, that they no longer spent long hours reminiscing. No, their stories now were closer to what Gimli would call gossiping—trading news about people they both somehow knew, despite the thousands of leagues of distance between them.

Even worse, Glóin seemed to be the only person who enjoyed Bilbo’s sense of humor even more than Bilbo himself. If Gimli had to listen to his father bellow with laughter at another one of Bilbo’s poems insulting a mutual acquaintance that Gimli had never met—but no, he was being unfair. On most days, Gimili thought Bilbo was just as funny and fascinating as everyone else, and it was hardly Bilbo’s fault that Gimli wasn’t the one who’d traveled for days and days with him on a quest to slay a dragon.

He was just...well. He was a bit off, these days. Everything was a bit off. It was becoming more and more difficult to pretend otherwise.

“You seem troubled, Master Dwarf.”

Gimli nearly catapulted out of his skin in shock, and his hands were on his axe before he knew what was happening. It was lucky for the Elf who’d spoken that he didn’t take their head off.

He looked up, and revised that thought. It was lucky for _him_ that he hadn’t tried. The other Elves would be extremely upset if he’d attacked Lord Elrond in his own home, not to mention he wasn’t convinced it was a fight he could win.

“My apologies—I did not mean to startle you.” The Elf bowed low. “Elrond, at your service.”

Gimli’s mouth nearly dropped open, but the response was so ingrained in him that he was bowing before he thought about it. “Gimli, at yours and your family’s,” he said mechanically. The first time he’d met Elrond he’d hoped never to run into him again—just being around him was enough to make him twitchy, as though every braid in his beard was coming undone and his chainmail was around his ankles. The most unnerving thing about Elves, he realized, was that their appearance of youth was deceptive. Elrond especially had a look in his eyes that said he was old, older almost than time itself, and there was very little those eyes had not seen. 

It was hard to think under that kind of pressure, but Gimli managed to scrape his thoughts together long enough to continue. “It is I who should apologize—my father continues to tell me it is not wise to be caught unaware, in these dark days.”

“Your father is wise,” said Elrond, leaning on a convenient balcony. “But if there is a place where one can be unaware for even a moment, it is here in Rivendell. Do not be sorry for being at ease in my home.”

Gimli should have said something polite and inoffensive in response, but he sighed heavily before he could stop himself. The sound drew Elrond’s gaze. It occurred to Gimli suddenly that the only thing as deep as the Elf-Lord’s age was his wisdom. “Forgive me,” he said quickly. “Rivendell—your house—it’s not bad, you know, for an Elf dwelling...” he stopped, cringing, but to his astonishment, Elrond actually laughed.

“High praise, from a Dwarf,” he said. “I am flattered, Gimli son of Glóin, that you do not hate my house.”

“I would say greater than that—I spoke wrongly,” Gimli stammered. What was wrong with him? “The hospitality of the Last Homely House has rightly gone down in legend, I deem,” he continued, hoping he could undo some of the damage from his tongue, which was not usually this clumsy. “And it is a refuge indeed for weary travelers, even someone such as I, who is so used to the familiarity that comes from dwelling amongst my own kind. I am not used to the ways of Elves, but the discomfort is my own to overcome, and not the fault of anyone I’ve met here. I hope you will believe me when I say that I’ve wanted to see it for myself for years, after hearing my father speak so highly of it.” 

Elrond’s gaze was steady, but he said nothing. Gimli took a deep breath.

“It’s just...” but words failed him again. He stopped, in the fashion of a Dwarf thinking over his words, but he couldn’t help hoping Elrond would fill in his reservations for him, or get offended and leave, or _something_. 

He did none of these things, only waited. Gimli’s mind made the shape of the signs for _uneasy, be silent and wait,_ but he did not make it with his hands. Then the silence forced more words out of Gimli, for in truth he was not done expressing the things on his mind. “I came here with my father because I wanted to do something—I was tired of sitting in the mountains, waiting for the first stone to fall. And now I’m doing the same thing, only in the woods of a valley—beautiful indeed, but quiet—instead.”

Elrond did not respond right away, but Gimli remained silent. He’d said his piece at last, and though he’d sought for words before, now that he’d found them, it was not his way to keep talking simply to fill silence.

When Elrond did speak, his voice was quiet, and full of the weight of many years. “When the stone does fall, you may not feel as you do now. You may wish it had been prolonged a little longer.”

Gimli snorted. “Maybe Elves don’t mind the time spent waiting, but I do,” he said, and he did not spit the word “Elves” like a curse, but remained diplomatic as he’d been trained. “It feels a waste, to me. My axe grows restless, and so do I—so does my mind. I want to put them to use. To face the danger before it catches up with me from behind.”

At these words, Gimli found himself on the receiving end of a very critical, very searching look. He tried not to fidget under it, or turn as red as his hair, and when Elrond looked away, he bit back a sigh of relief. “It would not be the first time a Dwarf rushed into danger before the time was right,” Elrond said, but he didn’t give Gimli a chance to retort. “You may yet get the chance. Be patient yet a little longer—the time for action has almost come. If you will hear the wisdom of Elves, trust that we have learned over long years exactly when and how to act when the time to wait is over.”

Gimli managed a nod, and Elrond nodded back, then swept away in a whirl of rich fabric. Once he was sure the Elf was gone, Gimli breathed out the relieved sigh he’d been holding. Bilbo’s description of Smaug was less terrifying than that penetrating stare, and though Elrond’s words left him with much to think about, now he was more anxious than ever. “Elves,” Gimli grumbled, mostly to himself, mostly not meaning it.

As he said the word, he tried not to notice the flash of green and gray out of the corner of his eye, colors that he knew belonged on the clothing of the Mirkwood Elf. Still, his fingers twitched on the handle of his axe—he really wanted to fight something right now. “Avoid him, just avoid him,” he said to himself, and walked away, wishing he at least had some iron to pound at.

_  
That was a regrettable misunderstanding, long set right. If all the grievances that stand between Elves and Dwarves are to be brought up here, we may as well abandon this Council._

There was much to learn during the Council of Elrond, but Gimli found his eyes, for whatever reason, repeatedly drawn to Legolas. The Elf seemed to be ignoring him, but his eyes flashed angrily when Glóin mentioned his treatment in the dungeons of Thranduil, and it seemed to Gimli that he would have retorted sharply without Gandalf's intervention.

And then he seemed slightly startled when Glóin simply bowed and let the whole thing pass, although Gimli could hear his father grumbling under his breath even then. Gimli grinned to himself—he’d have something to say next time his father lectured him about manners.

Moreover, underneath the wave of dismay at Legolas’s news, Gimli had to work to suppress another smirk. It seemed the dungeons of the Elves were no more secure than they had once been. It was a selfish thought, but one that he could not help but hang onto. So much for Elven superiority!

When he did catch Legolas watching him, though it wasn't often, he couldn't read the expression exactly, but it looked vaguely disgusted. And though the long arguments of Elves and Dwarves may have been overshadowed by the rest of the Council, once it was all over, Gimli couldn't help but wonder what the reason was for that disdain. And whether a swift punch to the jaw would wipe it off the Elf's face.

That was best not dwelt on.

Mostly.

  
Legolas spent far too much time wondering if a punch to the Dwarf’s face would be as satisfying as he suspected.

Not Glóin—no, shockingly, he found it difficult to be angry at Glóin. The old Dwarf’s manners had been impeccable, despite his flash of temper. Legolas supposed this was the most that could be expected, from a Dwarf. Such pettiness was beneath him. After all, it was useless to expect the full formal apology he was actually owed. Better to take what he was offered and not let the Dwarf’s insolence get to him.

Legolas allowed himself a moment of feeling superior and mature before returning to his ruminations about the other Dwarf, Glóin’s son. He didn’t pretend to remember his name, only the gleam in his eye during the Council, a gleam that Legolas was _sure_ was amusement, and he was sure it was directed at him. What for, he couldn’t begin to imagine, but he knew, just _knew_ , that the Dwarf was mocking him. 

He was probably off somewhere right now, saying rude things about him. Just as he had after Elrond spoke to him! Even if he had been hiding a smile (had that been a smile? He’d been hiding _something_ ), even if he had just finished saying the exact things that had been in Legolas’s mind for all this time.

Legolas was on edge and he knew it, from all the dark talks of the previous days. He’d known something was deeply, deeply wrong, and here was the proof. If anything was making him restless, it was the growing threat of evil, the knowledge that there was something to be done about it, and the deep, persistent hope that he would be chosen to help. He knew, deep in his bones, that he needed to go on this quest, that was _right_ for him to go.

It wasn’t Gim—the Dwarf. It couldn’t be the Dwarf. Even if Legolas knew he was somewhere in these halls, laughing with his father or the five halflings at how foolish Legolas was. 

He was very carefully concentrating on the autumn leaves of Rivendell and very deliberately not thinking about Gimli’s mocking smile, which was why Aragorn startled him by coming up behind him and speaking a greeting in Elvish. It was _not_ because he was a failure to all Elvenkind, to be caught off his guard by a mortal man, even if it was one of the _Dunedain_.

Most would not have seen the surprise on Legolas’ face, but Aragorn had grown up around Elves. “ _Goheo nin_ ,” he said, the apology delivered in flawless Sindarin, with the direct yet graceful accent of one who had spent half his life in Rivendell. Legolas knew his father would be angry at him for admitting it, but he’d grown fond of the Rivendell Elves and their no-nonsense way of speaking. It was so different from the tone of his own land, that alternated between overly flowery and severe bordering on harsh.

He pulled his thoughts away from his father and his home and managed a small smile at Aragorn. “The fault is mine,” he said in the Common Tongue, inclining his head and hoping Aragorn couldn’t see the turmoil of his thoughts on his face. “It is not often that I have the chance to be among new trees—I was lost in thought, listening to their voices.”

If Aragorn could tell this was not entirely true, he did not say so, merely smiled in return. “A fair excuse. I fear the Valar themselves could not count the number of times I have startled an Elf who seemed to be alert, but was in fact listening to the forest.”

Legolas fought back the urge to give him a sharp look, and merely furrowed his brow in confusion. At the expression, Aragorn laughed. “It was a joke, _mellonamin._ But come—I did not seek you out in jest only. I wished to confer with you.”

Legolas blinked. His friend? Aragorn considered him a friend? They had interacted once or twice, it was true, but it had been his fault he had to search after Gollum all those months and—never mind. It was unimportant. “On what business?”

“The Quest,” said Aragorn. “Elrond tells me you have been chosen to represent the Elves, and since I have agreed to go as well, I wanted to discuss some matters of strategy with you and with Gandalf. And Gimli, of course.”

There was something in that sentence he didn’t want to hear, but he couldn’t think about it yet. “I have been chosen?”

Aragorn raised an eyebrow. “Did you not know? Elrond said—”

“I offered to go, of course, but—” Legolas swallowed, trying to suppress a shout of joy. Could it be true? Was he really going?

And then the rest of Aragorn’s words caught up with him. “Gimli? The _Dwarf_ is going?”

Aragorn’s eyebrows climbed higher. “You and he were chosen to represent your respective races, the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth. It is only fitting to bring a Dwarf as well as an Elf—to leave either out would not be right.”

“Yes, but—” Legolas stopped. He couldn’t put his objection to Gimli into words, and he had a feeling that “but it’s _him_ ” would make no sense to Aragorn, and only succeed in making him look foolish. “Very well,” he said finally. “You really wish to confer with both of us?”

“You both have experience that we will need if this Company is to be successful,” said Aragorn firmly, and something in his tone made Legolas stand up straight at the words.

“I will come,” he heard himself say.

Aragorn smiled again. “Very well. Can you come now? The others are gathered already.”

“Please, lead the way,” Legolas said, and followed Aragorn out. He was more than a little unnerved to realize that the steely note in Aragorn’s voice had almost sounded like his father.

Legolas never did find out what the true purpose of the meeting was. He and Gimli were glaring daggers at each other before it even began, making snide comments under their breath, and eventually outright fighting. It ended in a screaming match that Gandalf had to intervene in, dragging Gimli away while Aragorn took Legolas’ arm and marched him out of the room.

Aragorn said nothing of the affair, only gave him a long, measuring look that spoke volumes of disappointment—and again reminded him strongly of Thranduil—but when Legolas tiptoed back to see him meet back up with Gandalf (and eavesdrop on the conversation), he thought he heard the wizard say, “I did warn you.”

Whatever that meant.

_  
Gimli the dwarf alone wore openly a short shirt of steel-rings, for dwarves make light of burdens; and in his belt was a broad-blade axe._

_..._

_“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens,” said Gimli._

_“Maybe,” said Elrond, “but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.”_

_“Yet sworn word may strengthen quaking heart,” said Gimli._

_“Or break it,” said Elrond. “Look not too far ahead! But go now with good hearts!”_

Gimli though the wizard’s scolding would blister his ears right off—he hadn’t gotten a tongue-lashing like that since he was sixty-two years old. (He’d been caught packing supplies for the Quest for Erebor, and his plan was to sneak after his father until they had traveled too far out to send him back, and then reveal himself. His parents had not been impressed. Gimli had had his mother, his grandfather, and his cousin Dís watching his every move for weeks until they were sure the Company was too far away for him to follow. That had not been a pretty sight. Gandalf’s disapproval had nothing on Dís.) 

He bore it well, hoping it would convince Gandalf not to rethink the decision to let him come on the journey, but he did not apologize. That Elf had to learn now that nobody made nasty remarks about his heritage without getting a boot to the knees, at the very least. The possibility, however, did not seem to occur to Gandalf. Gimli guessed that aside from there being no other Dwarf to send, once Elrond decided you were going somewhere, you were going, and that was that unless you yourself raised an objection. 

Strangely, Glóin didn’t bring the disastrous meeting up at all. Instead, he was quiet for all the time leading up to Gimli’s departure, though they spent more time together than ever. Bilbo wasn’t around now—he spent all his time shut up with Frodo and the other hobbits, as they soaked up as much time together as possible before the journey began. And so Gimli was left alone with his father.

He didn’t mind. There was no more sitting in front of the fire gossiping; instead, Glóin took him out into Rivendell daily, showing him secrets and hidden paths that he’d discovered on his previous stays. He said very little, and Gimli knew they’d both prefer to be underground for this, but in the late autumn light, with the sound of the wind whispering through falling leaves and the feel of strong rock underfoot, he thought that perhaps this wasn’t the worst place to say goodbye.

The last night before he left, they performed the parting rituals as best they could. They were traditionally done at the parting itself, but the rites were secret, known only to Dwarves, and there would be no chance to do them the next day, to sneak away from the eyes of men and elves.

Gimli had long dreamed of drinking the cup of parting, of donning the mail shirt that he would not remove unless at great need until his journey was done, of saying the secret words, and finally setting off on his own adventure. But now, looking into his father’s eyes, he wondered how many others had done this, how many times it had been the last words they ever said to their friends and families.

His thoughts must have shown on his face, because his father gave him a grave nod. It would be an ill omen to shed tears at the parting ceremony, so they both carefully kept their emotions in check, but he knew Glóin was as relieved as he was when the rites were finished and they could embrace for what they both hoped against all reason would not be the last time.

Gimli held the last words of his father that day close to his heart, though he never spoke of them to anyone. He would not see him again—the ritual was finished, and Glóin could not be present to see the Company off.

If anyone found it strange that he wasn’t there, they did not say so. They said farewells by the fire in the great hall, but they were all wrapped up in their own thoughts and affairs to wonder about him, Gimli supposed. Perhaps the hobbits even knew something of what had passed the night before, but knew better than to ask. 

As they prepared to leave, they were still mostly quiet. Even he spoke only to counter Elrond’s words—no one would say that he was anything but loyal, even on the darkest of roads! But it was a short conversation, and Elrond paid no heed to Legolas’s stormy face at the exchange, so Gimli tried to do the same and not wonder what the Elf was so upset about.

And then, with a short farewell from Bilbo, and a few parting words from Elves who had come to see them off, they were on their way at last, winding their way through the dusk into the wild.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gimli’s unconscious use of Dwarven sign language is based on my own experience knowing some ASL. Certain words (e.g. “sleep”, “I don’t know”, “money”) have worked their way into my vocabulary and I find myself signing them as I’m talking even though the person I’m speaking to wouldn’t know I’m doing it.
> 
> Tolkien never mentioned Gimli using it around the Fellowship, but I imagine that with it being a second language, Gimli might be even more prone to the habit than I am. I also imagine him reverting back to it when he gets more comfortable around people, which is also something I do.


	2. Stiff Necks

_Gandalf walked in front, and with him went Aragorn, who knew this land even in the dark. The others were in file behind, and Legolas whose eyes were keen was the rearguard._

Legolas did not fail to notice that in the beginning, Aragorn and Gandalf separated him and Gimli, with a barrier of seven other people no less. To be treated like a child stung a bit; but he could not argue, when their reasons for keeping him the back were so sound. And so instead of seething, he tried to focus on keeping watch and not distracting their leaders, who were finding their way.

But all was quiet on their journey, and at times he found himself almost against his will being drawn into conversation with the four hobbits, which soon descended into chatting merrily about many things.

It could have begun with Frodo, who spoke fairly fluent Elvish and knew the most of the ways of his people. But the Ringbearer was quiet, seeming lost in his thoughts, and Legolas did not need to wonder why. His servant Sam stuck by his side protectively, looking at everyone but Aragorn—“Strider” to him—and the other hobbits with almost a more unfriendly eye than the Dwarf Gimli towards Legolas.

No, instead it was the hobbit Pippin that first began a conversation with him.

He didn’t quite hear it at first, only a jumble of words that ended with “Legolas, do you know?”

Legolas blinked, and saw four hobbits looking at him expectantly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was watching the sky, and the lands around us, and I did not hear you.”

“Did you see anything?” said Frodo. He looked as though he was trying not to appear worried.

“No,” said Legolas. “The land all about is quiet, and the birds and beasts take no heed of us. There is nothing yet to fear.”

He spoke more confidently than he felt, for “nothing to fear” was probably an overstatement, but to put Frodo’s mind at ease seemed worth it. His and Sam’s shoulders relaxed a little, and Legolas’s heart warmed to see it. Why he felt the need to protect these four halflings so deeply and so quickly, he did not know.

Before he could wonder about this too much, Pippin, who seemed to be admirably singular-minded, said “Good. Then you can help us.”

“With what?” said Legolas, already feeling both wary and amused. He had the impression, from the looks on the other hobbit’s faces, that this was not an unusual reaction to Pippin’s questioning.

“Settle an argument,” said Merry. “Do giant spiders speak the Common Tongue?”

Legolas blinked. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t that.”I have never heard one speak. Though I generally don’t give them much time to. Where did you hear that they do?”

“Bilbo heard them, in Mirkwood,” said Frodo. “They had captured the Dwarves, and were discussing whether or not they were quite dead, and how good they would be to eat.”

Legolas very nearly shuddered, before catching himself. He had not heard that part of the story. But he would think on it later; he was not sure he could discuss Dwarves politely with these hobbits. “Was Bilbo wearing the Ring at that time?”

“He was,” said Frodo. His eyes were on Legolas, and they were clear and almost piercing in a way that seemed a bit unnatural, especially for one without the wisdom that came with age and time.

“That would explain much,” Legolas said. Sam was looking at him warily now; he’d been silent for the whole conversation, but he was watchful as always.

“He led them on a chase,” Pippin said proudly, unaware of whatever exchange was going on. “He called them ‘attercop’ and ‘lazy lob’. It drove them mad!”

“Attercop?” said Legolas. “Is that a foul insult among hobbits?”

“Oh, yes,” said Merry solemnly, but the eyes of all the hobbits were dancing. “You could drive anyone into a rage, calling them attercop.”

“So I shall have a care, if I’m ever in the Shire, to never say attercop.”

“You’d be a fool to throw around a word like attercop,” Pippin said.

“You ought to know attercop is no laughing matter, Master Pippin,” said Sam, sounding reproachful and with a straight face to rival Lord Elrond himself.

Legolas couldn’t help it. He laughed—and the hobbits laughed with him. It was a strange feeling, like poison seeping out of a wound, and he realized with a shock that he hadn’t laughed so hard in what felt like an age.

With hobbits, however, he was learning that there was not much time for reflection when you in conversation.

“Are there Elvish insults?” said Pippin. “Will you teach us, if there are? Bilbo never would, if he ever knew any.”

“Bilbo probably thought it impolite to ask,” said Frodo, pointedly, but this sailed over Pippin’s head.

“Oh, well, manners,” said Pippin. “We’re hardly in a great and formal hall, are we? But perhaps Elves don’t resort to insults the way some folk do.”

“If they don’t, it can’t be because they’re old and wise,” said Merry. “Gandalf is both, and he’s nearly roasted us alive with some of his curses.”

“He’s never insulted me,” said Frodo.

“That’s because you don’t go about pestering the great ones,” said Sam. He didn’t seem to expect his meaningful look at Merry and Pippin to do much good, and it didn’t.

“So how is it, Legolas? How are Elves when they’re angry? Really angry, not just Fool-of-a-Took-stop-stealing-my-fireworks-or-I-shall-put-you-on-the-end-of-one-and-set-it-off angry?”

Pippin’s Gandalf impression actually got Legolas to laugh again. “Peace!” he said. “I shall tell you all you wish to know, or that I can say. “Only ask one at a time, so I may answer correctly and not have something I say mistaken for an Elvish curse!”

The hobbits laughed, taking the chiding in good humor. Legolas found his spirits lifting, and soon they were conversing merrily, until Gandalf actually told them to quiet down, as their quest was a secret and they didn’t want to broadcast their location to the whole world.

This was well, until Pippin muttered “unless you intend to alert the whole country to our position!” under his breath and set everyone off again. Legolas made sure to keep an eye on the country around them even as he laughed with them, but the impression of Gandalf was perfection, and he could truly not remember the last time he’d heard anything so earnestly funny.

  
Gimli had never heard laughter so merry from an Elf. Not even in Rivendell.

He scowled, and turned his face towards the mountains once more. And absolutely did not miss the sound of the laughter when it faded.

  
The wind was bitterly cold, but Gimli kept to the front of the group. He could have shielded himself from the wind by staying behind the larger members of their company, but he did not. Avoiding the Elf seemed like the best strategy for now—and anyway, he could see the shadows of the mountains ahead. No Dwarf could rest easy at the back of a group when such an end was in sight.

For in his heart, he longed to see them. He had heard many legends and songs about these mountains, and seen great works of art made in their image. What secrets dwelt in their depths, he would not have the chance to discover, but it would be enough to see them.

He was quiet for a time, wandering over, under, and into mountains in his mind. He also noted that the bones of this country were limestone, jutting amongst the grass, and thought idly of what could be made of it given time and a reason to work on it. But slowly, he became aware of the hobbits murmuring, and soon realized their conversation mirrored his own thoughts.

“Bilbo said he wanted to see mountains again,” Frodo was saying softly. “He got his wish, but I wonder what he would think of these.”

“We’ve barely seen them, in this dim light,” said Pippin, shivering. “And this wind. How it blows!”

“Did you get such winds on the Lonely Mountain, Gimli?” said Merry, who evidently had noticed him listening. “Or is it different from open land like this?”

“The Mountain is in the middle of open lands,” said Gimli. “And yes, the wind does howl.”

“Don’t you remember the Dwarves’ song?” said Sam, and recited:  
_  
“The pines were roaring in the height  
The winds were moaning in the night.”_

“I’m afraid I haven’t quite memorized every bit of poetry Bilbo told us,” said Frodo, smiling at him. To Gimli he said, “We’ve discovered that Sam has a better mind for it than any of us.”

“Well, he’s right,” said Gimli, pleased. Sam made embarrassed noises, that were roundly ignored. “And the pines do creak when the winds whip around.”

“You must stay nice and safe under your mountain on evenings like this,” said Pippin.

Gimli smiled. “You understand us well, Master Took—when the wind blows, the beer flows, as we say on the mountain!”

All the hobbits laughed. “No wonder Bilbo was so anxious to go back,” said Frodo. “It sounds like a place where a hobbit would do well!”

“I do not think all the food under and around the mountain would be enough to throw a party to hobbit standards,” said Gimli, remembering Bilbo’s recent visit. How the tables had groaned! The Dwarves by now knew to welcome their hobbit with nothing less than a grand feast. And even then, they were all very aware that Bilbo’s farewell Party had been still grander.

“We’d be happy to help with the cooking, Master Dwarf,” said Sam, eyes dancing. “Show you a thing or two.”

“If you ever come to Erebor, I’m sure it would be our pleasure,” said Gimli, giving a half bow as best he could while still walking, and fighting the wind. This was not a joke—he’d had some of Sam’s cooking already, when they could risk a fire, and out here in the wild, it seemed comparable to all the feasts of Lord Elrond and the Lonely Mountain combined. Part of this was the appetite one worked up on a journey, but Gimli had far worse traveling fare in the past and could tell the difference between good and bad cooking even with such a mighty hunger.

“Tell us about Erebor,” said Pippin. “Give us something warm and bright to think about in this cold and dreary land!”

Gimli needed no further urging to talk about his homeland. He happily launched into a description of the lanterns swinging, the singing, the bright sounds of hammer and tongs and beautiful things being made by dwarves hard at work. The hobbits were a wonderful audience, making appropriate impressed noises and asking questions at all the right times.

He even sang snatches of a Dwarvish song about the mountains and the pines, one that did not include a dragon attack, and that had been running through his mind almost without his realization. The hobbits loved it, and asked him to sing it several more times so that they could memorize and sing it themselves.

In some ways, it did make the cold journey easier, to sing of home.

In other ways, it made it much harder.  
  


Legolas had never heard such such singing, and from the mouth of a Dwarf! He would not have guessed they sang much at all, except about gold.

He scowled at the sky, searching for danger and almost hoping to find it. Yet all he could notice was the strange silence all about them, silence from even the trees.

Gimli’s low Dwarven singing continued.  
  


_“I need no map,” said Gimli, who had come up with Legolas and was gazing out before him with a strange light in his deep eyes. “There is the land where our fathers worked of old, and we have wrought the image of those mountains into many works of metal and of stone, and into many songs and tales. They stand tall in our dreams.”_

_..._

_“Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram,” said Gimli,” and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla. My heart trembles at the thought that I may see them soon.”_

They had not spoken as they came up the hill behind the others. Gimli seemed to be deep in thought, or silently seething, or—or anything, really. Legolas did not know how to read Dwarves as well as he could understand the minds of the others.

Then it was strange, to hear him speak at last, and so musically, though that music was in an equally strange language. And yet, he talked only of the Dwarfish need to rip up mountains and stone and bend them to their will. Legolas tried not to sneer.

But Gimli did not seem to notice Legolas’s eyes on him.

And then Gandalf was speaking of Hollin and Elves, and Legolas turned his attention to the speech of the trees and the rocks all about them, and away from the Dwarf.

  
_“There is a wholesome air about Hollin. Much evil must befall a country before it wholly forgets the Elves, if they once dwelt there.”_

_“That is true,” said Legolas. “But the Elves of this land were a race strange to us of the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not now remember them. Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone. They are gone. They sought the Havens long ago.”_

Gimli had never heard that Elves could hear the speech of stones. This was not a talent known to his people, though with much time, patience, and slow building of skill, there were many other things Dwarves could sense about rock and stone and how to best work them.

His eyes were long on Legolas, wondering what this could mean and what else the stones could tell him. He wondered if he even knew what kind of rock it was, and how it would have been mined and then built, long ago. But the Elf did not seem to notice.

Gimli built the fire, for the Dwarves did have skill with fire, and in truth he did not trust any other member of the company except perhaps Aragorn with the task. When he was done, he sat back and let Sam take over the cooking, and listened to the four hobbits talking to Boromir. For apparently it was his turn under Pippin’s scrutiny, with a thousand questions about Minas Tirith.

None of them found it a burden to talk of their homelands, but Boromir seemed the happiest of all to speak of Gondor, and he was pleased by their interest.

“It has seven rings, from the bottom to the very top. The gates face opposing directions all the way up; this is done for the defense of the city. Do you have such cities in your land?”

Moreover, he was asking his own questions. Gimli found himself learning about the Shire in ways Bilbo had never spoken of.

“We do not take much care for defense,” said Frodo, smiling. “There is not much to defend against.”

“There were the wolves of the North,” said Merry. “They crossed the Brandywine River once. It had frozen over. But that was long before I was born.”

“And wolves are the only thing you have to fear? Have you no wars?” The concept seemed to startle Boromir, as Gimli supposed it would, having grown up never knowing peace.

The hobbits exchanged glances, and slowly shook their heads, shrugging.

“And yet you carry swords,” said Boromir. “Do you not know how to use them?”

“We carry them only at need,” said Frodo. He looked uncomfortable.

“Strider taught us a bit,” said Merry.

“You may need the skill soon,” said Boromir. “A blade is more dangerous to the wielder than his enemy, if the wielder has no skill.”

“That’s exactly what Strider said,” said Pippin. “Word for word. Is that a saying in Gondor?”

Boromir laughed. “It is, but I imagine it is a saying in most places where knowledge of the sword is needed!”

“Well now, hobbits can use what comes to hand in a pinch,” said Sam, who had been listening to the conversation and looking thoughtful, though he did not have much to say. “Remember old Bullroarer Took?”

“That’s right!” said Pippin. “I had forgotten. He was my ancestor—in the only war that ever entered the Shire. He’s more famous for being large enough to ride a horse!”

“And for inventing golf,” said Frodo, smiling. To Boromir, he said. “He led the charge against an invasion of goblins. And Bilbo used to say he knocked the head right off their leader with a wooden staff, sent it flying into a hole, and thus invented the game of golf.” All the hobbits laughed at a joke they seemed to all be in on.

“Golf?” said Boromir.

The hobbits looked at each other in astonishment, then all four of them at once launched into a description of the game. Gimli smiled behind his beard, and returned his attention to the fire. He had heard enough of this from Bilbo, who’d even gotten several of Gimli’s kin to attempt to play. Watching ancient graybeards of the mountains try to hit small balls with wooden sticks had led to an afternoon full of laughter in Erebor.

The memory of that day startled him. He had not expected to miss home so soon, if at all.

It was at this moment that he realized the Elf’s eyes were on him. He looked up.

Legolas made a very obvious attempt to look away and pretend he had not been watching.

“If you have something to say, speak,” said Gimli gruffly, then winced internally. He must be more tired than he thought, to speak so roughly even to an Elf.

A flash of irritation crossed Legolas’s face, but he hid it quickly. Typical. 

Although, come to think of it, Gimli was not sure he had ever seen an Elf look visibly angry, even for a split second.

“Well?”

“You know these mountains,” Legolas said at last.

“It was in these mountains that Durin looked into the Mirrormere, and founded the city of Khazad-dûm,” Gimli said shortly. “They are known to all Dwarves, especially Durin’s folk.”

“You trace your lineage back to Durin?” said Legolas.

Gimli grunted in response, which was near as he was prepared to get to agreeing with a statement made by Legolas of the Greenwood. “Hence the name Durin’s folk.”

“Do not expect me to understand all the history of the Dwarves,” Legolas snapped. “For you keep everything so secret, how am I to know?”

“We do not keep secrets from folk who do not disdain and attack us for them,” Gimli retorted. “And who are the Elves to complain of secrets? I could have told you limestone could make great and beautiful buildings that could endure for generations, but you—you can apparently can speak to stones?”

“I do not _speak_ to stones, I _listen_ to them and sense their memories,” Legolas said. “As anyone who knows anything of Elves would know, for we do not hide our gifts away greedily in the mountains!”

Gimli opened his mouth to give that the blistering response it deserved, when Gandalf intervened and told them to both be silent, if they could not speak without argument.

It was at this moment that Merry noticed that Aragorn had wandered away to the ridge, and called out to him, perhaps only to break the tension. When Aragorn reported the odd echoing feeling of their speech, and the silence of the land, they were all forced to fall silent.

This did not stop Gimli from noticing that Legolas seemed to be embarrassed, or angry, about something. He was not sure which, and careful observation yielded no answers.

The quiet also gave him a chance to wonder what on earth the Elf had meant by talking about the mountains to him. Was there really some secret he wished to know? Had he just been trying to start a conversation, only to be rebuffed by Gimli’s bad mood and distrust? Or was he, in typical Elvish fashion, butting his nose in where it did not belong?

Gimli had no answers. But he resolved to keep one eye on his reluctant companion. Something was going on, and inscrutable Elves or no, Dwarves could be patient indeed.  
  


As they slept that day, the _crebain_ came, and they did not leave them in peace the next day, or the next. When they came to the point where a decision must be made about their course, Gimli awoke to the news that their leaders had decided to take the northern pass on the one mountain he did not wish to climb. 

  
_‘Caradhras was called the Cruel, and had an ill name,’ said Gimli, ‘long years ago, when rumour of Sauron had not been heard in these lands.’_

The Company was uncommonly silent and grim as they prepared to face Mount Caradhras. The hobbits shot curious glances at Boromir, perhaps wondering about his journeys in high places, but Boromir was preoccupied preparing for the climb and did not notice.

They did not notice that Gimli especially was troubled and moody, and kept giving the mountain dark looks. Legolas did notice—but he could not ask why. Curse the stubbornness of Dwarves! He thought this not for the first or last time. 

But he wished, perhaps for the first time, that there were words he could use to understand his reluctant companion’s mood. Legolas had never backed down from a fight, but he also did not enjoy fighting. He wished he could ask a question and have it answered plainly, without stumbling into some closely-guarded secret and source of rumbling anger that he was starting to find tiresome.

Could Dwarves not simply hold a plain conversation? Even the Hobbits, who were strange folk indeed, did not seem to treat talking to each other like a battlefield.

And what Dwarvish secret was Gimli not telling them about Caradhras? Did it have something to do with the Mines of Moria, where the Dwarves had awoken—

Legolas forced his thoughts down. That did not bear thinking about. And being distracted wondering about Dwarves was exactly how he’d missed the strange silence in Hollin, which Aragorn had observed and he had not. He needed to focus, and stop wondering about things that he would never find answers to.

It was Aragorn who broke the silence of preparation, and when Legolas pulled himself out of his own thoughts, he was in the midst of a conversation with Boromir.

“I have traveled the White Mountains as well, though only a bit; to the settlements and villages only.”

“That is where I went usually,” said Boromir. “Especially early in my service. My father thought it well that I travel as much of our land as possible.”

“Supply runs, and bringing aid, is what I did the most of,” said Aragorn. “But you must have made other visits.”

“Yes,” said Boromir. “Later on, of course, my father sent me sometimes on the rotations to visit them and their Lords, and learn of needs that can not be told in letters. It is a poor Lord, who never visits even the outermost settlements of his people, and he wished me to learn of them.”

Aragorn nodded. “I wanted to see more of the mountains; I would have liked to go to the peaks. To the Beacons, if I could.”

“Few other than the errand-riders of Gondor in need of waystations go there,” Boromir said. “The settlements around them are self-sustaining, though the city does send some supplies there, things they cannot get or make in the mountains.”

“But you have been,” said Aragorn.

“It was my desire to see and travel the most remote parts of our land, and to bring my brother with me,” said Boromir. “He prefers his books and only fights in this war at need—but he too loves our land, and also desired to see the Beacons and learn about how they are kept and operated. And to meet the men that keep them. My father could not argue, for it was he who taught us to govern, and his example we were following.”

“A dangerous journey,” Aragorn said. “But well made. I confess I wished to make it too, for the same reason. But it is not a journey to be made alone, and there was no one to take it with. It is as you say—few ever go there.”

“If I get the chance, I will show you the Beacons and the White Mountains myself,” said Boromir. “It is perhaps a sad thing, to have need of such a system—but Gondor has always had enemies, and at need we have become resourceful.”

“I know,” said Aragorn, and at this, he smiled faintly. “We all have—at need.”

Legolas noted that all the other members of the Company were listening intently to them, though pretending not to, with various degrees of success. But no one interrupted; it seemed Legolas was not alone in understanding or at least sensing the delicate balance in each conversation between these two men.

Soon, they were beginning to climb the mountain and the snow was beginning to fall. Conversation sputtered and died off once more.

Legolas did not mind the snow on the ground so much, as he did not have to wade through it like the others, but falling from the sky it was relentless, and the wind was made more bitter by the stinging daggers it carried.

When the Company stopped to rest and to discuss their course of action, Gimli mentioned that Caradhras had a reputation that Legolas had not known about—and that Gimli had not mentioned before. Legolas did not doubt that a mountain could be called cruel, and have intent more evil than simply the elements, but he did wonder how it gained that reputation. He, like Aragorn and Gandalf, sensed something will ill-intent towards them—but, like them, he also could not divine its source.

He wondered if Gimli would ever say where the mountain got its ill name, or if that was even spoken of in Dwarf legend. And whether Gimli would ever say, or simply snap at him again.

The wind howled louder, and the sounds of falling rocks continued all around them.

There was no use trying. The Dwarf would never be able to hear him anyway.

Frodo asked later, when they had a fire going and needed to do something to ward off sleep. And he didn’t need to phrase it diplomatically at all—he just asked why Caradhras had an ill name.

Gimli looked troubled, but not angry. “There are many tales,” he said. “Many legends. Sometimes dark things lie in the hearts of the mountains, and they cannot be changed or made wholesome.”

“Like the Old Forest,” Frodo said, nodding. “Tom Bombadil said that some of the hearts of the trees are black and rotten.”

“Yes,” said Gimli. “But older. And deeper.” He looked up at the sky. “I cannot speak of it more—not here.”

“It’s all right,” said Frodo, sighing and warming his hands over the flames. “It’s just, there is so much I do not know, about Middle-Earth. The world is so wide. It makes a hobbit feel small, sometimes.”

“Well, I don’t feel small,” said Pippin. “Or, well, not so small that I’m not still curious. If you ever do feel like speaking more of it, let us know, Master Dwarf. If you don’t, I shall have to invent tall tales of my own about the deeds of Dwarves.”

The hobbits all grinned at him, and Gimli chuckled behind his beard. “You’ll have your turn by the time we’re through, Master Took, mark my words,” said Sam.

Pippin laughed. “Maybe so! Or maybe I’ll grow tall enough that even these big folk feel small around me!”

“You’re already too big for your britches, and no mistake,” Sam retorted.

The hobbits fell to talking and laughing—quietly and wearily, but still laughing. But Legolas could only think of the dark things Gimli did not name, and whether they were the same as the ones he was thinking of.  
  


_‘Farewell!’ he said to Gandalf. ‘I go to find the Sun!’ Then swift as a runner over firm sand he shot away, and quickly overtaking the toiling men, with a wave of his hand he passed them, and sped into the distance, and vanished round the rocky turn._

Of course the bloody Elf could walk on snow.  
  


_‘Ah, it is as I said,’ growled Gimli. ‘It was no ordinary storm. It is the ill will of Caradhras. He does not love Elves and Dwarves, and that drift was laid to cut off our escape.’_

Gimli saw Legolas shoot him an odd look at that. He must have noticed Gimli’s glare when he ran off to “find the sun” or whatever smug nonsense he’d spouted. But it was true—they had enemies in common aplenty, and Gimli did not see the point in pretending otherwise.

“Don’t stare,” he grumbled anyway, as they prepared to make their way down. “Not all stones love and long for the Elves, any more than all mountains love Dwarves.”

“There are many things that do not love the Elves,” Legolas said. He didn’t seem angry—not yet. Only thoughtful. “But I wonder why. I wonder what lurks in these mountains.”

Gimli grunted. He did not wish to think about it. He focused instead on his feet, and keeping them under him on the slippery limestone. He tried not to think about what other kinds of stones and treasures were found deep in in the depths of the mines underneath them.

“And I wonder if wondering about it will only bring grief,” Legolas continued, as though he had not heard.

At this, Gimli looked at the Elf in surprise. He had not expected to hear his thoughts mirrored so closely.

But Legolas’s attention had shifted away from him, and Gimli, at Gandalf’s suggestion, set himself to the task of climbing awkwardly onto Bill the Pony so that no man, however strong, would have to carry a fully-armored Dwarf down a hostile and snow-covered mountain.  
  


Perhaps a civil conversation with a Dwarf was possible—at least, if it was vague enough.

Legolas did not have long to think of this, or to find any hope in the thought. They were deciding what to do next, and his heart sunk into the ground when Aragorn and Gandalf revealed their next move.  
  


_‘I will tread the path with you, Gandalf!’ said Gimli. ‘I will go and look on the halls of Durin, whatever may wait there – if you can find the doors that are shut.’_

The moment Moria was mentioned aloud, Gimli found himself full of thoughts bubbling to the surface that he had not even been aware he was pushing down for days and days. Or perhaps longer—for now he found himself traveling in familiar patterns.

Balin would have sent word—would he not? If everything was well?

But the days had grown darker, and the land more dangerous. Perhaps not. Perhaps he was busy. Perhaps all was well in the mines, and he had sent word, but it had not made it to the Lonely Mountain and he had not noticed or worried about a lack of response.

But...Gimli could not convince himself that even if he’d been busy, Balin would not have sent word. The possibility that he did send it but it did not reach them was just as concerning.

Yet Gandalf seemed to have some hope, and he was one of the wise. Perhaps there was some hope left to be had. Perhaps if Balin was in trouble, they would be able to help him.

Moreover, he did not speak falsely to Gandalf. A fire had awoken in his mind at the chance to see the halls of his fathers. He found himself pushing forward to the front of the group once again as they made their way to find the the Sirannon. He had barely heard Boromir’s speech about not knowing whether to hope that they found their way or did not—and he barely noticed the Company’s ill mood, either. He was looking for the path to the ancient homeland of his fathers, and he would find it with or against hope.

They were rushing to get to the gates before sundown, and there was not much conversation, but the four hobbits did murmur softly to each other a few times.

“Did you ever meet Balin, Frodo?” Gimli heard Merry ask.

“No,” said Frodo. “Bilbo spoke of him often, I think he was his best friend, besides—well.” Frodo cleared his throat. The name of Thorin must be painful for Bilbo even now; Gimli couldn’t say he blamed him. “But I never had the chance to meet him.”

“Maybe you’ll get one now,” said Pippin.

“Maybe,” said Frodo. He fell silent, and didn’t say more. His thoughts were perhaps as conflicted as Gimli’s.

Gimli let himself fall back in line a bit, until he was in speaking distance.

“He was kind,” he said to Frodo, who looked up in surprise. “And he always spoke highly of Bilbo, too. Dwalin says he was the first to realize what Th—what they all said, in the end: that Bilbo indeed had ‘courage and wisdom blended in measure’, and his friendship was a rich gift.”

Frodo smiled, but it was sad. “Bilbo said the same of him—that he was one of the most wise among all of them. But I wonder...”

“Yes?” said Gimli, when Frodo did not speak.

“It’s just, if what Bilbo said was true, Balin saw so much grief in his life. And then to finally return to his home—why would he risk it again? Why would he leave?”

The fire in Gimli’s heart flared up, burning hot and almost causing him to lash out in answer. He took a deep breath, reminding himself that it was a fair question sincerely asked, and that he had indeed pressed Frodo for it.

As he did so, he saw that the Elf’s eyes were on him.

He would not embarrass himself by losing his temper again.

“It is our homeland,” Gimli said finally. “Our long history begins in these mountains. And it was taken from us, just as the Lonely Mountain was. I don’t think any son of Durin could ever turn down a chance to take it back.”

Frodo nodded. “Of course,” he said, and Gimli found himself rewarded for his moment of pause with understanding in the hobbit’s eyes. “I just wish...”

He trailed off, and Sam looked at him, then spoke himself, seeming to fill in the thoughts Frodo couldn’t find the words for: “It seems a shame, that so many lives of wise and kind folk are risked over and over, just to go home.”

“That’s it exactly,” said Frodo.

“Such is the fate of the Dwarves, it seems,” said Gimli. “But no life is risked in vain if the quest succeeds. For that possibility of a rich reward, we find it hard to say no to an opportunity.”

No one was brave enough to ask if it was so if it didn’t succeed—but it was written on the hobbit’s faces. Frodo most of all looked troubled.

They came then to a sharp downwards climb, that required concentration, and the conversation thankfully ceased.

  
Why would the Dwarf answer questions politely only when others asked him? Why did he only snap and growl at Legolas, when he too just wanted to know about the admittedly strange ways of Dwarves? 

And furthermore, why couldn’t he admit Frodo was right? It _was_ foolish to risk life after life to reclaim and evil-infested dank mine. Homeland or no, were Dwarves simply incapable of admitting when something was hopeless? Did their endless greed drive them to seek more and more and refuse to be happy with what they had?

This whole situation was preposterous, and it would be luck indeed if the Dwarf didn’t get them all killed.

Legolas said none of this aloud; he knew there would be no point, and he had promised to see the quest through. No Dwarf would call him faithless for saying farewell when the road darkened!

But he thought these black thoughts all the way to the doors of Moria, and did not try to push them away. 

  
_‘Those were happier days, when there was still close friendship at times between folk of different race, even between Dwarves and Elves.’_

_‘It was not the fault of the Dwarves that the friendship waned,’ said Gimli._

_‘I have not heard that it was the fault of the Elves,’ said Legolas._

_‘I have heard both,’ said Gandalf; ‘and I will not give judgement now. But I beg you two, Legolas and Gimli, at least to be friends, and to help me. I need you both. The doors are shut and hidden, and the sooner we find them the better. Night is at hand!’_

Legolas felt chastened only very briefly, for almost immediately, a great rage swelled up inside of him. Gandalf had heard both? Both? As though all the long crimes of the Dwarves against Elves were the fault of the Elves? As though the slaying of Thingol, however long ago, was nothing?  


He was wrong. Civility would never be possible, not with all the wrongs that lay between them over the centuries. He glared at Gimli, who at first returned it, but then appeared to catch himself. He harrumphed under his breath and turned away instead to examine the wall of the cliff with Gandalf.

Legolas took a deep breath. _At least be friends_ , indeed! Unlikely! But he would not let a Dwarf outdo him, not even now. He had sworn to do his part, so he would grit his teeth and listen to what the stones had to say.

“Do the stones speak to you?” Gimli asked, as Legolas pressed his ear against the rock.

“Not if you insist upon talking over them,” Legolas said.

A look of—was that hurt? passed over Gimli’s face.

“Very well,” he said. “I shall search in my own way, then, and leave you to it.” He began to tap his axe against the rock, seemingly at random, but Legolas couldn’t take his eyes off him, trying to figure out if there was a pattern. Another sharp retort was on his tongue, but—

_At least be friends. I need you both._

Gimli was explaining how Dwarf doors could be made secret, a thing Legolas once would have said he did not understand, for what use was a door if only some could find it? But in these times of trouble, there were things that perhaps would have been better off, if they could have stayed hidden behind a secret door, and not left to roam free in the woods...

And then Gandalf was running his hands over the rock, and the door was appearing, and there were the signs of both their peoples, entwined together, and—

Was this what could be made when Elves and Dwarves worked together?

_  
At the top, as high as Gandalf could reach, was an arch of interlacing letters in an Elvish character. Below, though the threads were in places blurred or broken, the outline could be seen of an anvil and a hammer surmounted by a crown with seven stars. Beneath these again were two trees, each bearing crescent moons. More clearly than all else there shone forth in the middle of the door a single star with many rays._

_‘There are the emblems of Durin!’ cried Gimli._

_‘And there is the Tree of the High Elves!’ said Legolas._

_‘And the Star of the House of Fëanor,’ said Gandalf._

_Mithril_. Even in thought, Gimli did not dare to use the Dwarves’ own word for it, not around these strangers. But the Elvish word was good enough, in its way, though it could not fully capture the fire inside him upon seeing it.

Gimli had seen so little of it, and its beauty was breathtaking, even more so in this dark place in this dark time. For a moment, he forgot his companions, forgot the sharpness of the Elf’s tongue, forgot the curiosity of the hobbits. He was swept away into a distant past, when this road would have been wide and bustling, and the doors flung open for all the world to see and enter, with only two living trees guarding the way.

Four trees, really: two in life, and two carved upon the stone. Elvish trees, Elvish symbols, yet Gimli could not deny they were beautiful, crafted here on the face of the rock. They were lithe, slender, delicate, yet strong, and they looked well there with the emblems of Durin above them. They fit together, somehow, though Gimli could not yet voice why he thought so, as they should have been opposed in design.

Elvish writing, too, although of course they would not have inscribed the door in the secret language of the Dwarves. Moreover, the door, though it could be secret at need, represented friendship, and great artists coming together to do a great work.

He spoke of Narvi and his craft when asked by Gandalf, but even as conversation grew heated around him, he could not focus on the riddle. 

He would never have the craft or skill of Narvi or the Dwarves of the past, but maybe, someday, he could make something this beautiful. Maybe.

This time, when he caught the Elf staring at him, he gave a respectful nod. Legolas jumped, looking caught, and then looked quickly away. Gimli almost laughed. He had never seen an Elf looking like a guilty young child caught stealing sweets before.

_At least be friends_.

What would happen, if they both unbent? Would it be something like these doors? Or a smaller work, but no less precious?

He would have pondered this long, if there had been time. But there was none.

When the Watcher awoke, danger and fear drove these thoughts out of Gimli’s mind. The doors were destroyed, a great work, lost forever. They had entered the Mines of Moria, and soon he would know his doom, for good or ill; but he would see the great mines at last.

And though he could not think of it now, the memory of the doors lingered. He would forever count himself lucky and blessed to have seen them, one time, before they were gone from the world.  
  


_Gandalf walked in front as before. In his left hand he held up his glimmering staff, the light of which just showed the ground before his feet; in his right he held his sword Glamdring. Behind him came Gimli, his eyes glinting in the dim light as he turned his head from side to side. Behind the dwarf walked Frodo, and he had drawn the short sword, Sting. No gleam came from the blades of Sting or of Glamdring; and that was some comfort, for being the work of Elvish smiths in the Elder Days these swords shone with a cold light, if any Orcs were near at hand. Behind Frodo went Sam, and after him Legolas, and the young hobbits, and Boromir. In the dark at the rear, grim and silent, walked Aragorn._

_..._

_Gimli aided Gandalf very little, except by his stout courage. At least he was not, as were most of the others, troubled by the mere darkness in itself._

Legolas tried to bring to mind his father’s face if he knew he was in the ancient home of the Dwarfs, fleeing danger, into dark and unknown parts, led in part by a Dwarf.

Unfortunately, he could picture it. Vividly.

Worse, he could not decide if wondering what his father would think of him was better or worse than thinking about the present and what might lay ahead in the darkness. He did not normally fear darkness, but there was something in this mine that unsettled him all the way to his core. He shuddered, not for the first time since the doors had collapsed behind them, and heard one of the hobbits behind him clear his throat.

“Are you all right?” said Merry quietly, when he turned. He and Pippin were watching him, looking worried.

Legolas tried not to laugh, for fear it would come out slightly hysterical. He was more than two thousand years old, and a halfling was rightly worried about his well-being. “Are you?”

Boromir behind him also looked grim and pale. None of them were all right, not really.

Except the Dwarf. Who was currently gesturing with his hand—then stopped, looking vaguely confused. He shook his head, and spoke in low tones to Gandalf instead.

What did that mean?

Pippin just shrugged. “We don’t have much choice, do we? But to follow Gandalf and Gimli?”

“I suppose not,” said Legolas tightly. He had no other words to say.

“I wonder what this place looked like,” said Merry. Legolas realized with sudden clarity that he’d gotten to know the hobbits well enough to tell when they were hiding strong emotion under their light talk, distracting themselves in the darkness and uncertainty.

“I don’t know,” Legolas said, deciding he might as well try it their way. “Crawling with Dwarves, I suppose. I just don’t know how they could stand this dark.”

“I don’t think they had to, much,” said Frodo, who was apparently listening in. “Bilbo said that when he visited Erebor, the Dwarves had filled it with light.”

“They used moonlight to reveal their door,” Sam said, thoughtfully. “And the last gleam of the setting sun, for the Lonely Mountain.”

“Starlight and sunlight has always been enough for the Elves,” Legolas said. “And even in my home, we only build fortresses of stone at need.”

“But your home is dark too, is it not?” Merry began.

“Not all of it,” Legolas said. He could not speak more—the thought of trees right now seemed to painful to dwell on. “And the darkness there cannot be penetrated by light alone, I’m afraid.”

“Still, the Dwarves fight off the darkness,” said Frodo. “They don’t hide in dank holes any more than hobbits do. They love light, of their own making and from the world.”

“Yes, I think I should like to see a real Dwarf cave before I decide whether I like it,” said Merry. “I shouldn’t like anyone to judge the Shire if they only saw an abandoned field full of empty holes.”

“The ways of other folk always do seem strange to those outside,” said Sam contemplatively. “I wonder if living in holes is odd to the Big Folk.”

“Yes, Boromir, don’t you live in a city of stone?” said Pippin. Legolas was blessedly relieved they didn’t ask his opinion; he suddenly had much to think about. 

“Yes,” said Boromir. “But your hobbit-holes sound pleasant, if strange indeed.”

“And what do you think of an underground stone city?” said Sam. “Is it very different?”

“We still breathe the free air in Minas Tirith,” said Boromir. “I am not at home here either, Master Hobbit. Moria may have been great once, but I cannot see it for the darkness.”

“I think I can,” said Frodo. “It is great—and terrible. But the Dwarves are skillful. I should have liked to see it, long ago, in its glory.”

“I’ll just never understand _why_ ,” Legolas said, but quietly, and mostly to himself. And then the silence and darkness of Moria dampened their speech once more.  
  


_‘These are not holes,’ said Gimli. ‘This is the great realm and city of the Dwarrowdelf. And of old it was not darksome, but full of light and splendour, as is still remembered in our songs.’_

_..._

_The light of sun and star and moon  
In shining lamps of crystal hewn  
Undimmed by cloud or shade of night  
There shone for ever fair and bright._

It was later, after Pippin’s encounter with the well, after Gandalf had led them nearly to the exit—that they had their questions answered, by Gimli himself, and then with clarification from Gandalf. _Mithril_ was prized among elves, too, although Legolas could not convince himself that they would have risked so much for it.

But it was Gimli’s song that stuck most in Legolas’s mind—just as it did with Sam. He found himself staring at the Dwarf, _again_. He was finding out more and more about Dwarves, entirely against his will, and the latest piece of the puzzle was that they were not only obsessed with treasure, but with _light_. Starlight and moonlight, captured in Moria-silver. 

He had been captured by the _ithildin_ , the starmoon, of the door as well, which as Gandalf said was of Elvish make, made of materials mined by Dwarves. Though he was not struck not nearly as much as Gimli, if the look on his face upon seeing it had been any indication.

(And since when could he judge the expressions of a Dwarf so well?)

Certainly, the light of the stars was beautiful—but the Dwarves had somehow captured it, and worked into other things, and the Elves had found it beautiful and valuable as well, and—and—

When silence fell about them, Legolas should have drifted off into sleep or meditation with the others, but it took hours for his mind to calm down.

And yet, he was only dwelling on one question, one that had been looming over him for longer than he realized, the single lone question of _what might be?_

When they awoke, and Gimli expressed his sadness at what Moria had become, and his doubt that Balin had ever come there, Legolas found himself pierced my more sorrow than he ever could have expected—and he wasn’t quite sure why.  
  


Later, Legolas would think of that day as ominous, but almost peaceful in comparison to the true grief that came to Gimli and then to them all the next morning. 

  
_‘[Balin] is dead then,’ said Frodo. ‘I feared it was so.’ Gimli cast his hood over his face._

Gimli sat in black despair, not hearing or seeing anything, for what seemed like a long, long time.

But Dwarves were strong, and in his secret heart he had been mourning Balin since setting foot in Moria—this was a fear confirmed, and a dark one, but though the blow stung hard, he had been braced for it.

He braced himself again, to hear the evil fate of his kin as Gandalf read, and took the book with as much steadiness as he could. Then when the Orcs came, he fought—and did not fail to notice the Elf, Legolas, fighting beside him furiously and with as much fire as one could hope for in any Dwarf. 

He noticed that it was Legolas who dragged him away, who forced him to keep moving, even as he cursed the stubbornness of Dwarves under his breath. He noticed that Legolas was the only one who cried out with him when they saw the Balrog, both recognizing the same doom.

His grief sharpened almost to the point of blindness when Gandalf fell; and yet he ran on, following Aragorn and the others even as he wept.  
  


_‘There lies the Mirrormere, deep Kheled-zâram!’ said Gimli sadly. ‘I remember that he said: “May you have joy of the sight! But we cannot linger there.” Now long shall I journey ere I have joy again. It is I that must hasten away, and he that must remain.’_

Legolas had never been more angry at anyone in his life, in any of his long years on the earth. Not even at his father over Gollum! And in his father’s home, he would have suppressed it and tried to move on, but out here in the wind under the sky in the wild, among strange companions, after dangers and in the midst of grief—out here, he was angry. 

How dare the Dwarf be sad, weep, feel grief as they did, when Gandalf’s loss was the fault of him and his kin? 

And then Gimli turned away from them, with Frodo and Sam, to go look into a lake. Legolas felt his anger drain as swiftly as it came on—for suddenly he remembered Gimli singing, _But still the sunken stars appear / In dark and windless Mirrormere,_ and Gimli saying, with grief in his voice _I have looked on Moria, and it is very great, but it has become dark and dreadful_ , and he still did not understand, not really. But though he did not find the mountains as welcoming as the forest, they were still beautiful in their own way. He would not have minded the chance to see what lay within the Mirrormere.

After all, it was Dwarves who had first seen it, first walked these mountains. They did not make the evil that lay within the mountain. They were foolish, to stir it up. But it was just as Frodo said; they had still fought against it. The treasure of Moria had been plundered and given to the Enemy, but that Enemy hated Elves as much as he hated Dwarves.

And if Gimli’s fighting was any indication, the Dwarves had indeed fought hard. Legolas hadn’t counted, but he was sure Gimli had killed nearly as many Orcs as he did. To save his own skin, perhaps, but that voice of doubt in his mind now sounded nastier to him than it had in the past. Gimli would have died by Balin’s tomb if Legolas himself had not dragged him away.

He could also not convince himself it was merely for revenge. Gimli had also cut the legs off an Orc that was coming for Legolas.

Suddenly sorrow overtook Legolas’s heart, replacing anger as if it had been the true emotion all along; he was confused, as he had not been in many years, and missing Gandalf, and—yes, missing home. Beneath the trees of the Greenwood, everything had made more sense.

When Gimli and Frodo returned from the Mirrormere, neither of them said anything about it. Sam would not even speak to Pippin of what he’d seen.

Legolas bit down his own curiosity, and turned his face to the road.

When Aragorn reminded him that they would soon be in Lothlórien, his heart rose a bit. Not enough, but it kept him on his feet. He longed to show the others a place that he knew of this time, and that was not overwhelmed by darkness and evil.  
  


_There lie the woods of Lothlórien!’ said Legolas. ‘That is the fairest of all the dwellings of my people. There are no trees like the trees of that land. For in the autumn their leaves fall not, but turn to gold. Not till the spring comes and the new green opens do they fall, and then the boughs are laden with yellow flowers; and the floor of the wood is golden, and golden is the roof, and its pillars are of silver, for the bark of the trees is smooth and grey. So still our songs in Mirkwood say. My heart would be glad if I were beneath the eaves of that wood, and it were springtime!’_

Even the fog of grief, Gimli snorted to himself. Elves!

And yet, though he still did not understand why trees of all things would move an Elf to such poetry, the words almost made him wish to see them.

The words he exchanged with Legolas on their way to the forest were almost pleasant. Legolas did not respond snappishly when Gimli wondered aloud if any Elves still dwelt in the woods—his response was thoughtful, a true answer. Perhaps fighting together in such close quarters was as significant to Elves as it was to Dwarves; he could not say, or ask, but his hope began to rise.

Of course it was not to last.  
  


_The voice of Legolas faltered, and the song ceased. ‘I cannot sing any more,’ he said. ‘That is but a part, for I have forgotten much. It is long and sad, for it tells how sorrow came upon Lothlórien, Lórien of the Blossom, when the Dwarves awakened evil in the mountains.’_

_‘But the Dwarves did not make the evil,’ said Gimli._

_‘I said not so; yet evil came,’ answered Legolas sadly._

Why did the Dwarf misunderstand everything he said? And why had it said it like that? Of course Gimli, who was hurt and on edge for the mildest of slights after their dark journey, would take it like that—when even in his own mind he had decided it was not the fault of the Dwarves! It had been centuries since his father had teased him gently about his thick tongue, and here he was again, forgetting the words to songs and babbling about the Golden Wood.

He wouldn’t have blamed Gimli for snapping at him after that, but he didn’t: when Legolas spoke of the Galadhrim dwelling in trees, Gimli said it was perhaps a good idea. On his words, the Fellowship began looking for trees to sleep in—and Legolas found himself hanging back to speak to the Dwarf.

“Your song,” he said, knowing it was abrupt an unable to think of any other way to bring it up. “In the mines. It was well sung.”

Gimli outright stared at him.

“I hope I do not offend,” said Legolas, aiming to speak earnestly and probably coming across as foolish instead. “But it is true.”

“Thank you,” said Gimli, sounding stunned. He cleared his throat. “Yours was...yours was good. As well.”

“I wish I could remember the rest,” Legolas said. He knew he was rushing to fill the silence, but he couldn’t stop. He just wanted the Dwarf to know, to understand him for once. He almost apologized for his singing voice, but stopped himself. He was rusty from days of disuse, and his voice was normally not much prized in any case, but no one else had noticed, and perhaps only Elves would. “It is beautiful in full. But long. Elves write long songs.”

Gimli snorted, but not unkindly. “And why not, if they have the time to do so?”

Legolas couldn’t tell if that was an insult, but before he bristled, he decided not to take it as one. He would have found it funny if one of the hobbits had said it, after all, and their senses of humor weren’t dissimilar. Besides, Gimli wasn’t finished speaking.

“Elves also fight well, I think,” Gimli said. He stopped for a moment, as if thinking—Legolas ached to speak again, to make sure Gimli understood that his well-meant words were well-received; but he held his peace, and was rewarded: “You saved my life, in the mines. I thank you.”

“You saved mine too,” said Legolas. “You also fight well. I think we might have killed the same number of Orcs.”

Gimli actually smiled at that. “Next time, we shall have to keep track, and see who kills more. But I hope that chance does not come soon.”

“Indeed,” said Legolas. “Not here, in the Golden Wood.”

They’d run out of conversation topics, but it soon didn’t matter. Aragorn was calling Legolas over to ask his opinion on some of the trees they’d found, and then they were surprised by the Elves of Lórien, and it all went downhill from there.  
  


_Gimli drew his axe from his belt. Haldir and his companion bent their bows. ‘A plague on Dwarves and their stiff necks!’ said Legolas._

_‘Come!’ said Aragorn. ‘If I am still to lead this Company, you must do as I bid. It is hard upon the Dwarf to be thus singled out. We will all be blindfold, even Legolas. That will be best, though it will make the journey slow and dull.’_

_Gimli laughed suddenly. ‘A merry troop of fools we shall look! Will Haldir lead us all on a string, like many blind beggars with one dog? But I will be content, if only Legolas here shares my blindness.’_

_‘I am an Elf and a kinsman here,’ said Legolas, becoming angry in his turn._

_‘Now let us cry: “a plague on the stiff necks of Elves!”’ said Aragorn. ‘But the Company shall all fare alike. Come, bind our eyes, Haldir!’_

He should have expected this from an Elf. Forget that they had fought together, that Gimli hewed the legs out from an Orc that would have skewered Legolas, even as Legolas shot arrows into the throats of more Orcs than he could count—forget all of that, for of course it meant nothing to an Elf. Forget that they’d saved each other’s lives, or that they’d been coming to an uneasy peace. Of course treachery was always waiting behind that unreadable face.

And yet it stung.

In the end, he did not mind being blindfolded in this forest. Knowing that the Elf couldn’t see it either was satisfaction enough; but even moreso, let the Elves keep their trees and their foolish lengthy poetry! He was happier in darkness anyway, feeling the occasional sensation of hard granite—which he absolutely did not wish to see—beneath his boots.  
  


_‘Also,’ said Haldir, ‘they bring me a message from the Lord and Lady of the Galadhrim. You are all to walk free, even the dwarf Gimli. It seems that the Lady knows who and what is each member of your Company. New messages have come from Rivendell perhaps.’_

_He removed the bandage first from Gimli’s eyes. ‘Your pardon!’ he said, bowing low._

Legolas fumed through the entire walk. Could not the Dwarf tell that this was not his idea? That it was out of his hands? Why would he single Legolas out, and be angry at him but not the Galadhrim? Dwarves had their own secret rituals and ways, and yet he chafed at the ways of the Elves?

Gimli did not look at him when Haldir removed the blindfolds. Legolas tried not to flinch; for it stung, suddenly, not to have the Dwarf’s gaze on him.

This was not his fault. It had nothing to do with him. If Gimli could not see that, there was nothing to be done.

Legolas took a deep breath, and at last looked around himself at the Golden Wood.  
  


The walk to reach Caras Galadhon was long, but beautiful. If only there had been harmony among him and his companions, Legolas would have enjoyed it more. Yet even among the most rare and beautiful trees of Middle-Earth, he was troubled, and could not entirely say why.

The disharmony was not his fault. 

He held onto that thought until the moment he looked into the eyes of the Lady Galadriel.  
  


_‘Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla, and fair were the many-pillared halls of Khazad-dûm in Elder Days before the fall of mighty kings beneath the stone.’ She looked upon Gimli, who sat glowering and sad, and she smiled. And the Dwarf, hearing the names given in his own ancient tongue, looked up and met her eyes; and it seemed to him that he looked suddenly into the heart of an enemy and saw there love and understanding. Wonder came into his face, and then he smiled in answer._

_He rose clumsily and bowed in dwarf-fashion, saying: ‘Yet more fair is the living land of Lórien, and the Lady Galadriel is above all the jewels that lie beneath the earth!’_

It was not the first time Legolas had heard Gimli speak so poetically, and though he had been startled the first time, now he only felt a sudden great warmth fill his chest. The other Elves were staring in shock; he smiled to himself and looked down.

But the smile was as much in pure delight as it was in satisfaction. Gimli did not hate the Elves; he was forgiving them; he found Galadriel fair; an Elf was fair to him.

Legolas had not known until this moment that he cared so much for the Dwarf’s—for Gimli’s opinion.

He also felt the last shreds of his doubt fade away. Galadriel was right, loth as he had been to admit it. He realized at last that in Gimli’s place, he would’ve sacrificed much to look upon an ancient homeland of Elves. And Gimli was perhaps quicker than he to admit defeat; did not the Elves still linger in Mirkwood, even as darkness grew?

He no longer even blamed Balin. His death had been too horrible; and Gandalf was right. The attempt had been foolish, but brave. Had it worked, Moria would have become safe and whole again. Legolas could no longer resent him for trying to achieve that.

When the Lady caught his eye, as she did the others, she first offered him the chance to go home, to be among his own trees and rest, away from this war. It wasn't so very far away, after all—he could turn away now easily, citing a need to be with his people, to aid in their fight, and no one would know that there was only rest waiting for him.

But though Legolas missed his home, and had briefly wished to be there, he knew deep in his heart that he had tried that; he’d found it empty. It would be even emptier now. He missed the trees, the silence, the endless passing of seasons and the refuge of the Wood-King's halls. But the trees of Lothlórien were new, and he had always longed to see them. It was a long journey in the dark to reach them, but he found he could not regret it, nor could he turn aside now from his friends.

He was also perhaps more accustomed than the others (save Aragorn) at holding the long gaze of an older Elf, though normally they did not speak mind to mind.

Still, he bore it well. And Galadriel seemed satisfied, though she had other matters she wished to speak to him of.

_You have become friendly with the Dwarf_ , she said in his mind.

_Gimli_ , Legolas said. _I don’t know. I don’t think he likes me much, though perhaps he no longer hates me._

Galadriel’s laugh was gentle, even in his mind. _He said the same of you._

_He spoke of me to you?_ Legolas was so surprised that he did not think to temper his eagerness to hear more.

_In a way_ , said Galadriel. Which was no answer at all, or so Gimli would likely say. _Elves and Dwarves were friends, once. We have more in common than we now like to believe_.

_So I learned in Moria_ , said Legolas, thinking of the great doors, and Gimli’s song. _Though we are still so different. And I cannot seem to learn how and why_.

_Try again_ , said Galadriel. _One more time. There could yet be a great friendship between you, if you are both willing to listen._

And she left his mind, leaving barely a trace of a smile, and Legolas with no idea how to take her advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone else not realize these two only fought for about a month before arriving in Lórien and becoming bff's? What ridiculous idiots. I love them.


	3. At Least be Friends

_Legolas was away much among the Galadhrim, and after the first night he did not sleep with the other companions, though he returned to eat and talk with them. Often he took Gimli with him when he went abroad in the land, and the others wondered at this change._

Lothlórien and its stillness made Legolas thoughtful, and though having a goal renewed his vigor, he decided he needed a plan this time. And any good plan required proper knowledge of the subject, which he did not have and could not get directly from Gimli.

So he did the next best thing, and went to Aragorn.

Aragorn looked puzzled when he came with his request, but this was a welcome change from the grief and care that had lined his face these last few days. “Everything I know about Dwarves?” he said. “That would be indeed a short list, for I have spent most of my time dealing with men, elves, and even hobbits.”

“And yet you know enough not to cause offense,” said Legolas, almost pleadingly.

Did Aragorn now look amused? “This was not your chief concern a few weeks ago,” he said. “I seem to recall that you two could not spend ten minutes in a room together without nearly coming to blows.”

Legolas tried hard not to blush. “My behavior was foolish,” he admitted. “It was based on half-truths and misconceptions, that I have made poor attempts to correct. This has…this has been made clear to me. I wish to make amends.”

Aragorn’s smile was warm; approving, but not the least condescending. He was already a good leader, and Legolas could not help but think that someday he would be great indeed. “Then I think you should talk to the hobbits, _mellonamin_. Bilbo was not the first of them to have dealing with Dwarves; and some of their customs are similar. Bilbo already knew many of their ways when they came knocking, though maybe he did not realize it.”

Legolas couldn’t say why he dreaded the look on Frodo’s face when he came asking these questions. “A good idea,” he said aloud, heart sinking. “I thank you.”

Aragorn laughed. “Don’t look so afraid,” he chided. “They won’t tease you. Much.” He looked thoughtful. “They may assail you with questions. Perhaps do not ask when Pippin is around.”

This did not put Legolas at ease.  
  


Aragorn was right, of course. Legolas went straight to Frodo and bypassed Merry and Pippin altogether. Sam was there too, but then, you never found Frodo without Sam. There was no use trying to catch Frodo alone.

He also had no doubt that Merry and Pippin would hear everything later, but he tried not to think very hard about that.

They were in the tree-dwelling that had been given to them to stay in, and Legolas noticed as he looked around that it was more comfortable and lavish than he would have expected of a guest-house. And then he realized abruptly that, like his own, it had recently belonged to someone. He’d thought they’d simply done him a kindness as one of their Northern kin, but it seemed instead that they’d all been treated equally.

Because Lothlórien was beginning to empty out. There were less Elves already than had lived there in years—indeed, in centuries—past.

But Legolas swallowed the thick emotions that rose up at this realization, and found the words to beg Frodo’s help.

Frodo was much worse at hiding his amusement than Aragorn, and Sam looked confused but also fascinated. He did not ask as many questions as Pippin perhaps would have, but the ones he did ask were far more embarrassing to answer.

Still, Legolas endured it, and when he knew a few more things, and felt prepared, he sought out Gimli—who could indeed be found alone.  
  


In all his days, Gimli would never forget the sight of Legolas Greenleaf of Mirkwood bowing in proper Dwarf fashion and offering his service. He would’ve asked him to do it again just to make sure he could be sure of what was happening, if he hadn’t been so shocked and if it wouldn’t have ruined the moment. He bowed in return, solemnly, and returned the offer as correctly and politely as he could.

Before he could begin asking—so many questions—Legolas was speaking again. “I owe you an apology,” he said. “For many things, but the latest is for your treatment upon entering Lothlórien. I should have protested it, and I did not. It was wrong, and I am sorry.”

It took long, _long_ years of diplomatic training for Gimli’s mouth not to drop open entirely. “It is well,” he said, finding his voice. “You did not make the laws of this land. I should not have blamed you—I am sorry, as well. To be blindfolded was a small cost to enter a land so full of beauty and wonder, such as only the Elves can make.”

“You are gracious,” Legolas said. “But I think,” he added, and Gimli perhaps detected a hint of a smile as he said it, “That we had best leave it at that. It is as—well, as Gandalf said: there is not time or patience anywhere in the world, to bring up all the grievances of Elves and Dwarves. Even if all we were doing was apologizing for them.”

“Some of our kin could make a good start,” Gimli couldn’t help saying, though he laughed to show that he meant no harm. “Only without the apologies.” He was startled to see Legolas’s smile bloom fully in response.

“But we are not our kin,” said Legolas, still smiling. “We have the chance to start over. That is why I wished to learn the proper way to greet you—I hope I did not intrude on any Dwarven customs that should be taught by Dwarves alone. It seemed from observation that this one was not one that was known only to Dwarves.”

“Even if you did intrude, which you did not, it was an honest effort well made and perfectly executed,” Gimli said. “And I thank you for it. Perhaps in exchange you could teach me how to greet Elves properly, for I find myself in need of that knowledge more than ever.”

Legolas laughed aloud—Gimli remembered, suddenly, that ringing, merry sound in the first days of their quest, and flushed to think how angry he’d been then, in comparison to his profound joy now. He did not think he could ever hear it too often!

“It will take long years indeed to teach you all the customs of Elves!” said Legolas. “You must accompany me on walks through Lothlórien, if you wish to hear even a small portion of them—for I will not give up the chance to walk among these trees!”

Gimli had no idea if the offer was planned, as the rest of the conversation clearly had been, but Legolas seemed to be in earnest. “I accept your offer, if it was truly meant,” he said. “This land is strange to me, but beautiful. I wish to learn more about it. I will tell you more of Dwarves, in exchange, if you truly wish to know.”

“I do,” said Legolas. Gimli was no longer surprised to see that he meant it.  
  


The Elves of Lórien had offered Legolas the chance to see the woods in their fullest, but they were at first surprised when Legolas brought Gimli with him. This Legolas expected, and he was ready for it. He would only tell them that the day’s wanderings would be done with both of them, or neither of them. And with the endorsement of Gimli from the Lady Galadriel herself, none dared to say otherwise.

These Elves were older and more traditional than the Elves of Rivendell, and indeed his own people. In many ways it was restful, to feel so young among them. But if age came with a grudge and prejudice against his friend, the kind he had so recently begun to lay aside himself—well, that was simply unacceptable. Gimli would be welcomed by them if Legolas had to personally force them all into it.

The first time, Gimli was stiff and nervous at his side, but soon it became a bet between them to see how long any given Elf would stand there looking thunderstruck but pretending not to be. 

When they started to get used to him being around, Gimli began making up strange Dwarvish customs and seeing how long he could go before they stopped pretending not to be horrified, while Legolas struggled to keep a straight face.

“You must confirm that no Dwarf would actually think to braid supplies for a three-day journey into their beard,” Legolas said, after one particularly absurd outing, and once they had both stopped laughing and started breathing again. He was almost certain Gimli didn’t have an absentminded great-uncle Gamil who once accidentally unearthed an entire dead pigeon after making an unfortunate mistake on one such journey, but— “I won’t pretend I can’t picture you attempting such a feat, if it was possible.”

Gimli laughed uproariously, and Legolas marveled, not for the first time, that even the more ridiculous of his questions now caused laughter and not offense. “Ah, forgive me,” he said, wiping a tear away, then making a gesture Legolas didn’t understand. He’d noticed Gimli doing that more and more recently, but had not asked why. “That’s a story we tell around the Mountain, especially to the children—they always fall for it! It did my heart good to see thousand-year-old Elves being too polite to admit they were falling for it too!”

Legolas laughed too. “Don’t think I believed you about the pigeon, Master Dwarf! I now know your face when you are engaging in foul deceit!”

“Aye, but you can’t be sure about all of it, and that is high praise to a storyteller,” said Gimli.

“I shall braid cutlery into your hair while you are sleeping if you do not tell me the truth,” Legolas threatened.

“My father really did used to do that,” said Gimli. “He said it meant he always had a spoon handy!”

“Which is the true secret of how the Dwarves took back the Lonely Mountain, no doubt,” said Legolas. “Smaug was actually brought down by a spoon!”

They collapsed into laughter again.

“We do braid trinkets into beards and hair sometimes,” said Gimli, when they’d once again recovered. “Beads, ornaments. Ribbons. I suppose it’s like any jewelry; some that some Dwarves wear all the time, some that’s for special occasions. I know that among Men, the women are more likely to wear jewelry, but it is not so with us, with hair adornments and otherwise. We all wear it as much or as little as we desire—unless we are working, in which case it is best not to be too highly decorated.”

“Yes, I wouldn’t expect to go hunting in a full crown and earrings,” said Legolas, smiling at Gimli’s laughter. “Not even my father would do that. Though there are rings we wear all the time—I suppose that is also much like other folk.”

“Aye,” said Gimli. “And I suppose it’s no use keeping ornaments in your hair, you’d have to do it over every day.” It was true that his hair was much more fine than Gimli’s, though lately he’d been more and more distracted by the curls Gimli’s fell in.

“Probably,” said Legolas. “If only to wash it, which I think we are forced to do much more of.”

Gimli scowled at him. “And what do you mean by _that_ , Master Elf?”

Legolas laughed. “Peace! Only that it is different, and as I have been taught quite forcefully recently, to be different is no bad thing!”

“We’ll make a diplomat of you yet,” said Gimli, laughing as well.

“Is there any special significance to any of your jewelry?” Legolas said, wishing very much to change the subject. He’d always been better at hunting and fighting than delicate conversations, and he did not like to be reminded that his father had been right to shut him out of them.

“There are ceremonial pieces,” said Gimli. “But otherwise, no. I have heard rumor among the men of Lake-Town and Dale that certain braids mean different things, and no doubt they think that jewelry placement holds significance as well. But mostly it is just a way to get long hair out of the way, so we can work!”

“And it creates a useful toolbox, I hear,” said Legolas.

“If you spread that rumor amongst the fellowship, you shall soon be looking at the business end of an axe,” said Gimli, but he didn’t actually sound very threatening. “And anyway, what about Elves? I noticed that long hair of yours doesn’t get in the way of battle, with the way you braided it.”

“Yes,” said Legolas. “But it is the same—the braids have no special significance. But there are those amongst us who are very talented, and sought after for their art.”

“For us as well,” said Gimli. “And it is no small thing, to go through all of a Dwarf’s hair. It is well if you have help. You might do it for a friend or family member, and they for you, for better results. And just hope you don’t find food in it!”

Legolas grinned. He was certain that part was not in jest. Gimli was far too careful about cleaning his beard after meals for that not to be a real danger. “Such a shame, that so few Elves have beards, and I cannot try and see for myself what I could hide in one.”

“Well, you certainly have enough hair,” said Gimli. “What, have you never tried to braid a knife into it?”

“I don’t know if it would hold,” said Legolas. “My hair is as thick as yours, but more fine.”

“Hmm,” said Gimli. “It’s dark, too. You’d need to hide equally dark objects.” It was true—the Elves of Lórien varied in coloring, as the Dwarves and indeed hobbits did, but all the Elves of Mirkwood had always been dark in hair and in skin. It helped them hide in the trees better, for a brown figure clad in green was less likely to be noticed than a pale one. Legolas did not know how some of the paler Galadhrim managed.

Gimli’s red hair stood out against his dark skin, a combination not often seen among his people or among Elves, yet one that Legolas daily found more beautiful.

He drew himself away from those thoughts abruptly. They were talking of knives. Yes, knives. 

“How would I get a knife out if I needed it in a hurry? Or do Orcs from the Misty Mountains stop and wait for you to unbraid your hair in the midst of battle?”

“Not in my experience, but there’s only one way to find out for sure if it would work,” said Gimli.

They looked at each other.  
  


It did not work, and they couldn’t find a way to make it work, but that was the day that Legolas learned that Gimli could juggle knives.

He was very grateful to Aragorn for not commenting when he found them, hours later, just as Legolas was demonstrating his own ability to balance a knife by its point on the tip of his nose.  
  


_Now as the companions sat or walked together they spoke of Gandalf, and all that each had known and seen of him came clear before their minds. As they were healed of hurt and weariness of body the grief of their loss grew more keen. Often they heard nearby Elvish voices singing, and knew that they were making songs of lamentation for his fall, for they caught his name among the sweet sad words that they could not understand._

_**Mithrandir, Mithrandir** sang the Elves, **O Pilgrim Grey!** For so they loved to call him. But if Legolas was with the Company, he would not interpret the songs for them, saying that he had not the skill, and that for him the grief was still too near, a matter for tears and not yet for song._

Gimli did not understand how Elves grieved.

Dwarves had grieving and burial rituals that he could not perform here. He had found time to weep, and to tear his beard, and weep more for the fact that he could not be there at the burial, and there was likely not time for the full burial that Balin deserved. It required, at the very least, complete underground darkness and then many many candles lit one at a time.

He had said the appropriate prayers, though those also would have been said already; he hoped. 

What he could not replicate was _atkât_ , the silence.

Even when a Dwarf died in battle and there was no time for a full burial ritual, they at least held a time of silence, in which the family was left alone to care for the body—or, if that was not possible, at the very least, in which no one spoke. 

They could drink or eat or go about their business, or sit alone or together and weep—but they did not speak.

Sometimes, if the death was heavily felt and there was more time to mourn, they might not speak for days on end, with anything other than brief discussions or instructions of what had to be done. Sometimes they might take a few hours a day and sit in silence.

This was done to give them time to think, and process, and allow the emotions to be what they would be. Words could be empty, and cloud the mind. They could be misunderstood, or insincere. It was better, at a time of grief, to simply be quiet. 

Sometimes they sat alone; sometimes with others. Sometimes the family would gather in the evening to sit and be silent together, for a time, and then rise and return to the necessary preparations.

In a full candlelit burial ceremony, the silence would last from beginning until end, all the way through the burial, until the first note of a song chosen by the family or friend was struck. They would all raise their voices in song together, filling the caverns with music that carried the pain of loss.

And then they would go together to a meal, where the silence was broken. Often stories were shared about the one who was gone. Laughter and tears would flow together, and the healing could begin.

Balin was Gimli’s cousin and not his immediate family, but the families of the Dwarves who reclaimed the Lonely Mountain were all very close. Had his death happened at home, Gimli would have found some time for silence; and so would his family.

But surrounded by Elves singing laments for Gandalf that sometimes brought an ache to his heart and tears to his eyes despite not knowing the words, he did not know what to do.

When he and the others asked Legolas to translate, Legolas would not. Gimli had not seen him weep, but he did not doubt him when he said that for him the matter was for tears and not yet song.

He did, however, speak in hesitating words about the custom of Dwarves.

“We find it hard,” he said, “To put into words a matter beyond words, before we are ready. Dwarves are sometimes a silent people. Perhaps this is why folks think we are secretive also—and sometimes it is true that we are slow to trust. But sometimes we simply have trouble finding the right words.” He signed _sorrow too terrible to name_ in _iglishmêk_ , for his hands had once more started speaking even as he spoke aloud—but only around Legolas, aside from a few times in Moria when he forgot he was not around Dwarves. He did not like to think about why.

“And you spend a long time finding them,” said Legolas, nodding. “I have noticed. I do not always understand why, but I think for this, I can perceive why it may take days and days to put such sadness into words.”

Gimli sighed. “I do not begrudge the Galadhrim their laments. But it seems wrong not to spend some time in—” he stopped abruptly, and coughed, to cover the fact that he could not say the word aloud. “In silence, I suppose you would call it. I find myself uneasy, unable to escape singing that I know is not disrespectful, but—”

“It still feels wrong to you,” said Legolas. “And we cannot light hundreds of candles as you feel we should, and so it is even worse.”

“Yes,” said Gimli.

“And even I can only listen to them, but when I try to translate the words or even think on them, my mind rebels and I am left only with bleak sadness,” Legolas said. The expression on his face was heavy; defeated. Gimli, sitting next to him, could only put a comforting hand on his shoulder and hope the intention carried through.

“It is beautiful,” said Gimli. “But Dwarves do not make music after the burial, when there is one, not for thirty days. I too am not ready to sing.” His hands made the word for _stillness and peace_.

“Then perhaps we should find a quiet place,” said Legolas. “And sit together in silence, as Dwarves sometimes do. I know we are not family, but—”

“No—it would do well enough, for strange times call for strange ways. Our Company is like enough to family, and Gandalf was—” Gimli signed _leader-mentor almost a father,_ but did not say it aloud, just cleared his throat awkwardly.

(It was a word typically used in silent conversations with other Dwarves while bargaining with non-Dwarves. Sometimes a Dwarf might not be sure of the person’s role in their own community, and many words were needed to describe such relationships and therefore determine appropriate etiquette. Gimli wasn’t even sure there was a spoken word for it, even if he was ready to say it out loud.)

“Well, anyway. I have been looking,” Gimli confessed. “But I am not sure of where it would be appropriate and where it would not. Do you know of a good place?”

“I do,” said Legolas. “Shall we go now?”

“Yes,” said Gimli without needing to consider. He would never acquire the Elvish taste for singing, and though he would never say so, it was also starting to become annoying. He could respect it and their custom, while still needing time away from it.

And so Legolas led him to a hidden grove, deep amongst the mallorns where there was no sound but rustling trees. 

Gimli was not sure how Legolas had found it; for it must have been used for something once, yet it was abandoned now. There were no treehouses overhead, but there was an arched white granite structure and a few low benches. Gimli was learning to love the granite of Lothlórien in all its various colors and shades beneath the trees, and Legolas could not have picked a better place. The trees and the stone blended together beautifully, and here perhaps he could find peace among both stone and forest.

He sat on one of benches, with Legolas next to him, and he tried not to wonder too much about why this place was empty, what it had been used for, and how Legolas had first come here.

He instead focused on listening to the trees.

Perhaps the Elves were already an influence on him, for Gimli, with his hands resting on the stone bench, found the sound almost as comforting as complete silence underground. It meant that around him, the world moved, but not so quickly that he could not exist in it quietly for a time.

As Gimli told Legolas when they sat down, there was no protocol for this. They could sit where they wanted, when they wanted, for as long as they wanted. All they were actually required to do was sit and not speak. If they wished, they could think whatever thoughts they were struggling to have in the places where there was too much noise. And either one of them was free to break the silence when they felt it was enough.

At first Gimli’s mind raced, wondering if Legolas was truly comfortable with this, if he would get bored easily. But he was an Elf; he could sit amongst trees all day, listening to their secrets, if he wished. And so, when he saw the serene look on Legolas’s face, he forced himself to let go of that anxiety.

Next, he simply listened to the trees. He’d never known, until Lothlórien, how many voices they had. They could rustle softly, or whisper quietly, or blow about in a gale, stirred up into a cacophony of voices by the wind.

As with other times when he’d done this, his thoughts soon turned to the thing he’d been avoiding: the loss of his friend and leader. He thought of Gandalf’s quick temper and loud laughter; of his light in the darkness in Moria, of his trust and faith in each of the nine companions. How he’d relied on Gimli then, even when the others had looked at him sideways in fear. How he’d been gentle through the discovery of Balin’s tomb, and helped Gimli find closure. How he’d known of the Mirrormere, and wished Gimli joy in seeing it, though Gandalf would never see it again and Gimli had to hasten away from it.

The sorrow pierced him then. He would never see Gandalf again—he had fallen, and Gimli could not save him. When he began to weep, he did so with his head bowed but not hiding, for though Dwarves tried to shed them only at appropriate times, they did not hide tears nor deem them shameful. 

He thought of Balin also, for he grieved for him still; and Balin would have had only good advice at this time. He would have told Gimli, as he did when Gimli lost his grandfather Gróin, to weep at need and laugh at need; to feel and not try not to, for that was how the mind was poisoned. And then he and Gimli’s father would sit with Gimli together in silence, with or without tears, for as long as they all needed to.

Remembering that love and care of his family, so many of whom were now lost, made the tears come faster, until he was nearly heaving with grief.

Legolas came closer to him then, and then Gimli saw tears on his face also. Yet he drew an arm around Gimli, and let him cry into his shoulder, and together they rode out waves of grief until they both agreed, silently, to wipe their tears and return to the others.

Legolas kept his hand on Gimli’s shoulder through the whole walk back.  
  


Legolas waited to speak to Gimli about the rift still between them, for he first wanted to ensure that there was some trust between them. That the question would be heard and not dismissed, and also would not ruin the fragile friendship that had begun to grow, that he already valued more highly than any friendship he’d had before.

They had been in the woods all day with the Galadhrim when he deemed it was time. They had stopped on the banks of a stream on their way back, to rest and for Legolas to listen to the waters. The other Elves had business to attend to in the city, so they had left him and Gimli, for Legolas now knew his way back.

They would not normally have been so rude as to leave them, business or no, but Legolas had waved them on. He’d wanted this time with Gimli.

They were both quiet for a long time, which Legolas now knew was not a sign of disrespect, from a Dwarf. Gimli chose his words carefully, and pushing him to speak before he was ready was to him more rude than silence.

Legolas was not sure, in retrospect, what it meant that he’d gotten Gimli to snap at him the way he had in the early days of their acquaintance.

It did not matter, not now. But he wondered.

“I had heard that the Dwarves were trespassers,” Legolas said, now loath to break the silence. But this had to be said, if ever there was to be true peace between them. He was careful not to say “you”, for he had learned that Gimli was not his father any more than Legolas was his. “That they came uninvited, unannounced, and accosted our people. But then I also heard that the situation was perhaps different than what I had been told. Will you tell me what happened?”

He hoped Gimli could tell that he meant the question honestly. He had learned many things that he did not know before.

Still, Gimli looked at him for a long time, and did not answer. Legolas waited. It was a delicate question, and if his friend needed to think before answering it, time was a small sacrifice. 

When Gimli spoke, it was not what Legolas expected.

“I was not born yet when Smaug came and Erebor was destroyed,” he said.

“When the Dwarves amassed so much wealth that it drew the eyes of a dragon,” Legolas could not help saying.

“If you would hear this tale, you would do me the courtesy of hearing it and not interrupting it,” said Gimli. “You may ask questions, but do not correct me or contradict me until I am finished.” Once, this would have made Legolas furious—he would have heard the words only, and not the tone. For Gimli’s tone was proud and firm, but not unkind, as though he was not cutting off argument, only delaying it to ensure he was heard.

He did not make any inexplicable gestures, and Legolas wondered why.

“I am sorry,” Legolas said, and shut his mouth.

Gimli nodded in acknowledgment, and continued. “As I said, I was not born. I grew up in the Blue Mountains, in exile.”

“Forgive me,” said Legolas. “I mean this truly—but if you were born in the Blue Mountains, then how was living there an exile?”

“The Golden Wood is beautiful,” said Gimli. “And its golden lady more beautiful still. But if your woods and all your works and half your family were destroyed, and Lothlórien was the only place left for you, would you not long for home? Would you blame your father for settling so near to Dol Goldur?”

Legolas was silent. There was a difference, he thought, perhaps, but he could not put his finger on it, and he had vowed to listen.

“In the Blue Mountains we were among other Dwarves, but they were not our kin. It was not the same. And the Elves of that land trade with us, but they did not really understand us, or try to. There are few in Middle-Earth who do—only Hobbits, who still think us strange, do not sneer and call us greedy, and they have little dealings with us, or with anyone.”

“Thorin would have led his people to slaughter for a pile of gold, and ended friendship with Bilbo for a stone!” Legolas could not help but say, this time.

“Yes, and we all know that the Elves have never fought wars upon wars over stones,” said Gimli.

This time, Legolas’s mouth fell open. The Silmarils were not _just_ stones, he could have argued, they held the light of the Trees of Valinor, they were the only thing left of what they’d lost that had been destroyed…

He shut his mouth abruptly. _Oh._

“And yet, only Dwarves are called greedy,” said Gimli. “Because we handle precious materials, work with them, and make them beautiful, and ask for payment for work that is valued dear to us and valuable to others, we are greedy.”

Legolas did not have anything to say to this.

Gimli waited, then went on. “I was born in the Blue Mountains, but I never belonged. I was an outsider always. Always our home was elsewhere—always we longed for it. And it was the same for all of us from Erebor. Durin’s folk became a wandering people, exiled, driven from home because a larger, more dangerous creature wanted what we had and what we loved.

“Thorin took his people through Mirkwood because they had no other choice. You’ve heard from Frodo what happened to them, how they only wanted food and drink, were driven to desperation by the time they saw your fires. How they would have said so, given the chance. King Thranduil was furious with Thorin for not stating his mission—but being distrusted by others for generations breeds distrust in return. I do not think Thorin was a fool for keeping the purpose of his journey close, and not revealing it to one who met him with hostility only, and whom he perceived to be his enemy.”

That was all Gimli had to say. Legolas had learned that when Gimli was done speaking, he would not waste any more words answering questions he deemed foolish. He would let you make up your own mind about what he had said.

And so Legolas sat in silence for a moment, rewarding long speech with thoughtful consideration. He never knew if Gimli found these silences worrying, as he did when Gimli fell silent, but he didn’t seem to. He seemed to expect it. Perhaps this was the Dwarvish way.

But the only thought in his mind now was that there was so much he did not know.

So, at last, he said the only thing he could think to, inadequate and hollow as it was: “I am sorry, Gimli. I did not know.” At Gimli’s look, he stumbled to clarify: “This is no excuse, only the reason. Those were suspicious days, as are the days now. I know what drove my father to his actions, but I do not speak for him, and I regret never questioning him. You have taught me—you have taught me to be kinder. To listen. And to do so even in these evil times. These are skills any Elf should already have, and not need to learn from a Dwarf! But I did not. And I thank you.”

Gimli smiled at last, and the sight of it warmed Legolas all the way down to his toes. He felt his heart thump hard, once, and nearly jumped in surprise. What had just happened?

But Gimli did not hear it, because how could he know what was in Legolas’s heart? He said only, “And I forgive you. There is much I, too, did not know. It is an honor to learn from you.”

Legolas smiled too. “Shall we return? I would not blame you if you found all this time sitting under trees tiresome.”

It was a peace offering, but one Gimli did not take, or at least not in the way Legolas expected. “I don’t,” said Gimli. His face was serious now, and he looked long at Legolas. “It is true that I do not love the woods as the Elves do. But do not think I am so stubborn yet that I cannot learn to love a beautiful thing that is new to me, that I am seeing in new ways.”

Legolas swallowed hard. He did not know what the look Gimli gave him meant—he was almost afraid to find out. 

“Perhaps you will teach me too,” he said. “I should like to see one of your halls full of light, if I get the chance. I find the idea of them more beautiful every day.”

“It would be my pleasure,” said Gimli gravely.

Legolas did not speak more, but sat with Gimli long, listening to the water and wondering—wondering many things, about the future, and what else his friend might find beautiful.  
  


_It was Frodo who first put something of his sorrow into halting words. He was seldom moved to make song or rhyme; even in Rivendell he had listened and had not sung himself, though his memory was stored with many things that others had made before him. But now as he sat beside the fountain in Lórien and heard about him the voices of the Elves, his thought took shape in a song that seemed fair to him; yet when he tried to repeat it to Sam only snatches remained, faded as a handful of withered leaves._  


When Legolas heard the verses that Sam and Frodo had written together for Gandalf, he took the time to translate them into Elvish, and set them to music. Gimli would have had to spend a great deal of time to make it even passable as a song, but Legolas did it like it was breathing, so easily did music come to the Elves.

Gimli knew that creating music wasn’t the hard part for Legolas. The grief made it difficult, instead; even in someone else’s words, he wasn’t ready.

But he did it for Sam and Frodo anyway.

As he worked on it, Legolas told Gimli what he had heard from the Elves; that in earlier times, the singing had been spread out amongst the trees even more. That perhaps they would have heard it even in their hidden grove. Even the flets they had seen in the distance, which had no lights within and to which there were no longer any bridges or stairs by which to reach them, would have been full of song.

Not all the Elves had left. Many of them were simply away; away at war.

Gimli listened, and was silent, as Legolas told him these things; and remained so even as Legolas wept over the words of Frodo and Sam. He thought that Legolas now understood his silence, for when he was finished, he took Gimli’s hand, squeezed it gently, and let go.

When Frodo and Sam heard their song being sung among the trees by the Galadhrim, both in the Common Tongue by those who spoke it and in translated Elvish by them all, Legolas said their faces were worth the trouble and the time.

Gimli could not remember why he had ever found Elves to be self-centered and detached.  
  


Boromir had promised to teach the hobbits some fighting, and as he would often say, the men of Gondor were true to their word. They had not had much time before, traveling mostly by night as they had done. It was strange to engage even in practice violence in Lórien—but then, the Elves of this land had a training area up in the trees; different from what Legolas used in Mirkwood, but large and airy with plenty of room to move and to fall and get up again. It was emptier than it should have been, but still well-kept and maintained; war was at their borders, too.

Aragorn helped teach, at times, but most of all it was hard to teach the hobbits how to train against a larger opponent. For that, they asked Gimli for help.

And so Legolas sometimes came to find his friends at meals, only to see them practicing the same move over and over as Gimli carefully and slowly, then more quickly, demonstrated such techniques as would work for them.

“And when you do that one, make sure you yell, ‘ _Baruk Khazâd_!’”

“Is that not Dwarvish?” said Frodo.

“Yes, should you be telling us that?” said Pippin. “I thought it was so secret no one but Dwarves can even read it.”

“Ah, our battle cries are not secret,” said Gimli, grinning. “Let the enemies of all free people learn to fear the axes of the Dwarves!”

“Well said, Master Dwarf!” said Boromir.

“We’re fighting with swords,” said Merry, to general laughter. Gimli ignored this, and tried a sword stroke that had Merry scrambling to block it.

And then Gimli trained until each hobbit could take down both Aragorn and Boromir with the move he and Boromir had been teaching them, despite the fact that even he would admit that sword fighting was tedious for him, and not his strength.

Legolas could not remember why he had ever thought Dwarves were selfish and unkind.  
  


They were walking along a particularly beautiful part of the Silverlode, which the Elves called the Celebrant, when Gimli found the courage to ask the Galadhrim to tell him more about the Lady Galadriel. 

The Elves had grown used to his presence, now, and Gimli thought they had forgiven him for his jests early in their acquaintance. Legolas said that when he went walking in the land without Gimli, the Elves asked after him and missed his company.

In all his days, Gimli would not have guessed that this would happen anywhere in Middle-Earth, let alone to him. And yet he was even asked on occasion to sing the songs of his people, about mountains and lakes and treasure. The Elves said they found them strange yet beautiful; which was what Gimli thought also of their songs, so he did not take offense. And he could not deny that most of all, he liked how round and intent Legolas’s eyes became when Gimli sang.

Gimli found himself under the gaze of many Elves when he asked about Galadriel, which was less pleasurable. 

Yet they answered, and that was all that mattered.

“She planted the mallorn trees,” said an Elf who was called Eldor, who had walked with them a few times. “It is said their seeds were given to Gil-Galad who brought them from the Undying Lands, but he could not get them to grow in Lindon where he ruled. And so he gave them to Galadriel, who brought them here, and she planted them, and they flourished. It is no wonder then that her gardens are renowned.” 

“Her history is tied up in the land itself,” said Gimli thoughtfully, looking at the trees again with fresh eyes.

“So it is with all Elves,” said Legolas. “The land does not forget them once they have been there.”

“I remember in Hollin,” said Gimli. “The stones cried out for the Elves, you said.”

“Hollin was once Eregion,” said Eldor. “Also ruled by the Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn.”

“But do you not feel some kinship with the stones?” said Legolas. “From what you have told me, they speak in their own way to you.”

More staring Elves. Gimli tried not to flinch. These were things not often shared with outsiders. He should be more clear with Legolas about what was admissible to speak about. “It is true,” he said anyway. “I cannot speak much of it. But—Dwarves do not idly make the decision to cut and shape a precious stone or metal. There are many things that must be considered. For each one is precious indeed, and if a work is to be made of it, it must—” He paused. There were things a Dwarf could sense, or simply tell from long years of experience, and he could not reveal their methods. “I suppose you would say it must that suit the material.”

There was much he did not say. But he truly could not speak to these Elves about the experience of being in a mine, of learning how to touch stone and understand from experience and innate sense how it was formed, how long it had been there, and how it would change over the years if left unattended. Such things were Dwarvish secrets not spoken of outside the mines themselves, and in truth he did not know fully how to speak of them in the Common Tongue.

“And how do you decide?” said an Elf whose name Gimli had not yet learned.

“In many ways,” said Gimli. “But I always think about how the stone catches the light, first of all.” It was another Dwarven sense, with its own word. Elves perhaps would understand; they seemed to more deeply be in tune with intuitions that Men did not have at all. But he could not speak of it to them.

The Elves all nodded, a gesture of understanding which Gimli would have found shocking a few weeks ago. Now, with golden leaves fluttering in the sunlight all around them, he only wondered if they realized that they valued gold as much as he did, but in another form.

“The Elves love light as well,” said Eldor. “Were not the wars over the Silmarils because of their light, that was the light of the Two Trees encased?”

“We Dwarves like to make our own light, I think,” said Gimli. “For we look at gemstones in lantern and firelight as well as in sunlight before we decide how to work them.”

“And you are skilled with fire,” said Legolas.

“Most Dwarves are,” said Gimli. “A crucial skill when your work is underground! But let us leave the mines—for they are not a good home for Elves, I deem. It seems you belong beneath the trees as much as they belong to you.”

“We love them,” said Eldor, looking up at the trees now. Gimli could not read the look on his face. “Lady Galadriel would not return to Valinor for her love of them; she could have gone back, but stayed in Middle-Earth to tend to them and this land. And yet now we will all leave someday; too soon, I think sometimes. But our time is ending.”

Gimli now saw that the listening Elves had the same expression, of longing and sadness. But Legolas looked troubled. When Gimli caught his eye, he shook his head. Perhaps they would speak of it later—for now, he said only, “Let us not look too far ahead, as—as Gandalf said. We yet walk under the trees and the sun; let that be enough, for today.”

Gimli stepped closer, and deliberately brushed his shoulder against Legolas’s hand. A moment later, Legolas’s hand settled there, and once again it did not move until they had returned.  
  


Later, they rejoined the Fellowship for dinner, and when Gimli described their walk and the things he had learned, Legolas saw Boromir’s eyebrows climb into his hairline. 

“You do not find this land strange?” said Boromir. “I know of your admiration of the Lady Galadriel, but—though she is fair, I still am uneasy.”

Legolas winced, and tried to hide it, but he knew both Aragorn and Gimli could tell. He fully expected Gimli to bristle protectively; Gimli did not like criticism, even veiled, of Galadriel.

Perhaps because they were among friends, Gimli tempered his reaction, though Legolas could tell by his voice that his patience was strained. “Since we met her, I have been treated with nothing but kindness, in a land that at first was hostile to me,” Gimli said. “There are things that are different indeed, but—I no longer fear difference. I was wrong to ever do so.”

Legolas felt his ears burn, and hoped desperately that no one could tell. He wished they were hidden as Gimli’s were, behind a pile of red hair and a helmet, and not so visible that he could both hear everything and be seen by everyone.

“What do you find different?” said Pippin. “Besides, well—I suppose a lot is different. Of course. Never mind.”

Gimli smiled gently at him anyway. “It is true that it is not always easy. Even the food is new and strange to me!”

The hobbits all chuckled a bit; the Elves’ surprise at how much was required to feed four hobbits had almost eclipsed Gimli’s astonishment at the abundance of fresh food, which he said was a luxury on the Mountain, as they did not grow crops and such food had to be traded for. Dwarves did sometimes hunt, though not nearly as often as Elves, and he said that their meat could stand to be less bland, for spices were highly prized and widely used among Dwarves. 

Only the bread left him speechless, and as he said his standards were quite high, for breadmaking among Dwarves and the nearby Beornings both was an art. Even in Rivendell he had not been impressed. But the bread of Lothlórien met and exceeded his expectations. He was now taking a bite of it, as if to demonstrate the virtue in being open and welcoming of new and different things.

Legolas wondered often what he would make of Mirkwood food, which involved much hunting but also more spices, for many things that came to the Mountain also came to the Elves, and they also traded with the men of Dale and Esgaroth. He had a feeling Gimli would not be much impressed with their bread, for it was not so good as here.

“But I do not mind the work it takes to become accustomed,” Gimli was saying. “For one, I am not used to so much singing in grief, so soon after a loss. But I have found my own time to grieve in my own way, with Legolas’s help, and I can now appreciate the beauty of the song. Our different ways do not always need to be at odds.”

“In Gondor we also sing at a burial,” said Boromir into the sorrowful silence that followed this. “But I have never had to compose the song. When my mother—” he stopped. Legolas wondered what he was thinking of; what sorrow caused the grief etched on his face. He shook his head. “Well, that burden has not yet fallen to me. I wonder at the gift of these Elves, that they can write so much poetry in their grief.” 

“I cannot,” said Legolas. “But they were not so close to it. They did not see it happen—they do not carry the weight of being unable to prevent it.”

“It wasn’t our fault,” said Frodo fiercely.

“Durin’s bane,” Gimli muttered.

“Indeed,” said Legolas. “Yet the sorrow binds my tongue. I cannot even write song.”

He was startled, then, by the strange look that Boromir gave him. Aragorn, however, looked faintly amused.

“Legolas, for Men it is harder to write song than to write prose,” he said. “In Gondor the closest kin writes the burial song, but they use one of a few poetic forms and melodies to make it easier.”

Legolas blinked, processing this. For many Elves, singing was easier than speaking; the tragedy made it otherwise for him now, but this was unusual.

“And for Dwarves, silence is easier,” he murmured. “I see.”

“I will teach you some of the forms, if you would like,” said Boromir. “If you are finding it hard to be unable to sing, you might find it useful.”

First he was offered a way to grieve in silence, and now a way to find his way into song and perhaps, eventually, healing. “I thank you,” he said, touched beyond words. “I think I would. And I would like to learn anyway. Gimli is right—our differences are not to be feared. I find they are—they are beautiful.”

Boromir nodded, but he still looked troubled. “You are both more wise than I, perhaps. I cannot find rest in this land, though it is beautiful. The singing does not disturb me—nor do the trees, or anything else—but I am restless, and I cannot say why.”

Gimli tilted his head. “Are you not yet convinced of what Aragorn told us, that only evil, or those who bring some evil with them have need to fear Lothlórien?”

Boromir fell silent for a time, before saying, “But there is power here. Great power. And if even the great and good can be corrupted by great power such as—the power held in that which Frodo carries, cannot it also be said that any great power can be used for ill?”

“It can,” said Aragorn. “But the Lady Galadriel has ruled wisely and well in Lórien for more than an Age, and has fought against the Dark power for longer.”

“Perhaps she has not yet been tempted,” said Boromir, and though he seemed to say it only as a token protest, Legolas felt a shiver run down his spine. He and Gimli exchanged glances; they too had felt the power in this land, and it would be ill indeed if it were turned to evil.

“Lórien will not fall,” said Aragorn. “Not yet. Not to evil.”

“To time, it will,” said Gimli. “I grieve to think of this land without the Elves.”

Legolas looked down, and did not meet anyone’s eyes. He had put thoughts of leaving Middle-Earth out of his mind for years; it was his home, and like the Lady Galadriel, he wished to stay to tend to it and to the land. The trees and—and yes, its people—were still too dear to him.

But he was also seeing Lothlórien fading and emptying out all around him, and wondering what it would be like when the Elves left it. Desolate, empty, and full of sorrow, it would be. He did not think he could bear it. He was slowly becoming aware that his time would come, though he hoped he still had years and years left before it did.

When he looked up, Gimli’s eyes were on him. He tried to smile, but it was faint.

“You are not weary of our company yet, are you?” said Gimli. He could have been talking about the Fellowship, and dinner, perhaps.

“Of course not,” said Legolas. “Though I have enjoyed being amongst my kin, I would miss your company if I was to find myself bereft of it. Yours most of all, I think.”

It was bold, to say the last thing, but something in Gimli’s eyes made him honest.

“It is well,” said Gimli. Did he look relieved? “We would miss you too.”

 _We_.

But Legolas strongly believed he meant _I_.  
  


Legolas had not helped to train the hobbits on the sword, for Boromir and Aragorn were far more suited to the task, but he watched many of their practices with interest. He found he had become invested in their progress.

Merry and Pippin especially took to it quickly and enthusiastically; when they sparred with each other, they did so while laughing and hurling jesting insults at each other. Frodo was reluctant, and seemed only to want to learn enough to defend himself, though he did well enough at that. And Sam was surprisingly focused, face set in grim lines as he wielded surprising strength even against Gimli who was the sturdiest of them all.

Much had changed, since Moria. But Legolas thought it was not all for the worse.

Especially when Gimli came up to him, grinning, helmet-less, wild-haired, and dripping with sweat from exertion.

“How was that, Master Elf?” he said, as he took a long drink from a skin of water. Legolas watched this, watched his beard get wet around the edges, and watched Gimli wipe his mouth, still smiling. “Well?”

“It was well,” Legolas said. He did not think he sounded strangled; if he did, Gimli did not notice. “They have made much progress.”

“I should say so!” said Gimli, laughing. “Sam nearly took me down! It was well fought,” he added, clapping Sam heavily on the shoulder. Sam looked pleased by the praise, and sat down on a low wooden bench next to Legolas.

“My gaffer would have a thing or two to say if he could see me,” said Sam, laughing. “I don’t half feel ridiculous!”

Merry, nearby, snorted. “It would be nothing next to the lecture I’d get,” he said. “A lot of talk about taking things more seriously and being too old to play around. You’ve heard it.”

The hobbits nodded, but Gimli and Boromir both looked curious.

“But you are in constant danger,” said Boromir. “It is a very important thing, to learn to defend yourself. Why would your father object?”

“Merry is an only child, a rare thing in hobbit families,” said Frodo. “And the Brandybuck family is…large. And important. He has a lot of set ideas about what Merry should be doing.”

“Some of us are more important,” said Pippin, pretending to be haughty, then laughing when Merry shoved him.

“I should think the Brandybucks at least could give the Tooks a run for their money if they tried!”

“I’m inclined to agree,” said Frodo wryly, and all the hobbits laughed at some unseen joke.

“Don’t forget your there’s Tookish blood afoot in your family, Mister _Baggins_ ,” said Pippin. All the hobbits were now sitting on one of the low benches at the edge of the training area, drinking water and generally getting their energy back more quickly than anyone who wasn’t familiar with hobbits could have expected.

“It’s responsible for far too many troubles already, I couldn’t if I tried,” Frodo retorted.

Before this conversation could descend into the petty arguments of the Shire lasting over decades, Boromir brought them back around to the subject at hand. “So your father is protective,” he said. “With high expectations also.”

Legolas looked at Boromir, who looked back, and a flash of understanding passed between them. Perhaps being the son of a ruler was difficult everywhere—another thing he had not expected to have in common with anyone in the company.

Even their songs were not so unlike as he might have thought; many of Boromir’s grieving songs were similar to Elvish ones that he had heard. They had been easy enough to learn, and Boromir shared them as eagerly as he did his skill at fighting, and now his story. It seemed that when you listened with a ready ear, it was quite easy to make friends with almost anyone.

“Yes,” Merry was saying. He was also wiping sweat off his forehead, but otherwise looked like he’d just had a short run, nothing like hours of intense practice fighting. “He means well, and he’s less concerned with appearances than some people—he doesn’t care if you’re a bit odd. He’s concerned with family business, mostly, and passing it on to me. But sometimes it’s a great deal too much to think about. And he’s not the type who you can really talk to.”

“He doesn’t mind that Merry spends lots of time with his cousins, though,” said Frodo. “You just have to manage him a bit so he doesn’t get it in his head that you need more discipline.”

Merry shrugged. “Sure, it can be done. But it gets exhausting.”

“He’d just rather I stop leading you into situations that end with us getting chased by dogs,” said Pippin.

“That was _one time_ ,” said Merry. “And anyway, at least I wasn’t permanently scarred by the experience, unlike _some_ people.”

Frodo gave him a look that Legolas couldn’t interpret, but made all the hobbits laugh. “If I know the two of you, it was both of your faults,” Frodo said, now pretending he couldn’t hear them.

“It was,” said Pippin cheerfully.

“Not that my father would hear that,” said Merry. “Luckily he always stops short of separating us. He values our relationship with the Tooks too highly, and he seems to think I’ll make Pippin more responsible.”

“Has that worked at all so far?” said Gimli, seemingly unable to help himself. He also did not look tired, but this was what Legolas would expect from a warrior. Though he wondered, not for the first time, how strong Dwarves must be to wear armor at nearly all times and make light of it.

Merry ignored this. “He really does mean well,” he repeated. “He didn’t stop me coming on this trip to help Frodo, though of course he knew even less than we did what that would mean. But—well. He just has a lot to say. About everything.”

“I understand,” said Boromir. “My father, as well, would have a great deal to say. As my brother would say…he always does.”

Legolas smiled, a bit tightly. “So would my father,” he said. “There are a few things I don’t intend to tell him at all.”

“Like what?” said Gimli, looking suddenly intent.

Legolas let out a frustrated huff—he had been trying not to think about this. “To be perfectly honest, coming here would be the first thing he approved of, and I’m not even sure of that. He would have had a great deal to say about everything from Moria to Aragorn noticing something wrong in Hollin before I did. There’s much I don’t intend to tell him at all.”

In truth, the only part he truly regretted was his error in Hollin. He’d been so consumed by resenting Gimli that he’d missed something important, and he would never not be ashamed of that The rest was bigger, and he was resisting the temptation to run the arguments in his head, for truly, what could he have done? But Thranduil would have words anyway.

Of course, the parts of the journey that would really upset his father were impossible to hide.

“Won’t he object to…” said Pippin, trailing off when Merry kicked him, but Legolas knew to what they were referring this time, and there was no use pretending otherwise.

“He will,” he said. “I do not care.”

Legolas could not interpret the look Gimli gave him now, only that it was intense, and it made him flush. Again.

“It is not always well to be stubborn when it comes to my father,” said Boromir, but he was smiling. “My brother has tried it, and the fights are much worse. They are altogether too much alike.”

“Perhaps he does not care whether it is well or not,” said Legolas. He rather understood the feeling.

“Perhaps,” said Boromir. “In truth, if they did not each complain about the other to me, I would not mind so much. It is wearisome to be always in the middle.”

“There you go, lad, there’s some consolation to being the only one,” said Gimli to Merry, who smiled ruefully.

“I have three sisters, I wouldn’t know,” Pippin said, laughing. “It does sound quite peaceful sometimes, but I shouldn’t like all that quiet all the time!”

“No room with you in it will ever be quiet, Pippin,” said Frodo affectionately, and to general laughter.

“I always got along well enough,” said Gimli. “But then, being the only child is not so rare a thing, with Dwarves.”

“You are close with your father, then?” said Legolas. He hoped he did not sound envious; but then, envy, perhaps, was not the emotion he was feeling.

“We have our fights,” said Gimli cheerfully, seeming not to notice. “But we work well together, and for Dwarves, that means a great deal.”

“If that is so, your fights do not sound like the fights with my father,” said Boromir. “For he is a proud man, and does not like to be questioned.”

“We do not fight, in the Elven-King’s halls,” said Legolas. “But you do not need to fight to show disapproval, as I have learned.”

“Well, it’s nothing like that,” said Gimli. He looked at them both for a minute, seemingly a bit worried, and even Merry looked shocked. They both seemed to decide not to comment, however, for Gimli continued. “Actually, my mother says our bickering could bring the mountain down! But we always come to an agreement eventually. Except for our biggest fight, of course.”

“Was it over you going on the quest for Erebor?” said Frodo. “Glóin told Bilbo you were desperate to come. He said you’d never been so happy as when you were chosen to be in the Company.”

“That’s right,” said Gimli. “They said I was too young, at sixty-two. I was only a few years away from being of age! But perhaps I would not have come with you, then, and would have missed a great deal.”

He was looking at Legolas as he said it.

Legolas smiled. “I wanted nothing more than to fight at Erebor,” he said. “And the chance to come on this quest was a gift for me also.”

“Was home so bad for you, then?” said Boromir. “I would have given anything to have stayed, only my mission was too important to trust to anyone else. But I am much needed there.”

“No, it was not bad,” said Legolas, as Gimli also shook his head. “But—”

“—It had become horribly tedious,” he and Gimli said together, then looked at each other for a moment, before Gimli grinned, and Legolas felt his face almost unwilling light up in an answering smile.

“It was as though we were sitting around waiting for Orcs to attack,” said Gimli.

“We had a few skirmishes, but no real action,” said Legolas.

“I felt trapped, waiting for a war to come to me that marched on all borders but mine,” said Gimli.

“I was trapped also, as I had never been among the trees of my home, and I failed in my one assignment,” said Legolas.

The hobbits were all grinning at them knowingly, though what they knew, Legolas could not tell.

“So you two have had a great deal in common from the beginning,” said Frodo.

“Yes, and who would have thought it?” said Gimli. “And I am all the more glad that I came along.”

“Such friendship deserves to be honored,” said Boromir. “And I can think of no better way than a nice long meal and a good drink together.”

“Yes, please!” said all of the hobbits.

Legolas and Gimli both laughed. “We have been eating and drinking together for days and days,” said Legolas. “I believe you are simply hungry!”

“Ah, well, you weren’t out there on the training ground,” said Gimli as they all got up and gathered their things to go to dinner. “Some of us have worked up an appetite, and earned our vittles!”

“Perhaps we shall have to get him out there,” said Boromir. “We’ve seen his bow in action, but not up close. I believe it is high time we got a demonstration.”

“Then you shall have one,” said Legolas. “But first, these hobbits need to eat—I do not want to get in the way of four hungry hobbits, and neither do you!”

And so, laughing, they all went to find Aragorn and test once more the capabilities of the fine chefs of Lórien.  
  


Gimli blamed Boromir for putting the idea in the hobbit’s heads. Merry and Pippin especially insisted on an archery demonstration from Legolas—and apparently, unbeknownst to any of them, Legolas was a bit of a showoff.

A _bit_. Ha! The archery course was on the ground, in small glade, and part of it was covered in small stumps that the Elves used to train in agility. At one point Legolas jumped up on one of these, jumped again, flipped in the air, and landed on one foot on another one. He shot his arrow mid-air, and it sunk deep into the target.

“And how was that, Master Dwarf?” said Legolas, smiling— _smirking—_ when he was done.

Gimli shot back a retort, but his mind wasn’t in it. And it was a good thing, even though he apparently inadvertently challenged Legolas and had to give a demonstration of his own, because if he’d said what he was really thinking, well, he would only have been able to manage two words:

_Oh, no._

  
Legolas was almost glad that Gimli didn’t have throwing axes on hand with which to show off his own target-practice prowess. He used knives, and that was bad enough. Apparently juggling them wasn’t his only skill! The intent look of concentration on Gimli’s face would never, ever leave him.

Neither would Gimli’s challenging eyebrow when he was done, having hit every target, just as Legolas did.

Legolas laughed to cover the heat that was now rushing through him unbidden, and said only, “It is well that we are on the same side, my friend. The agents of the Enemy shall learn to fear us.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Gimli. He had not looked away from Legolas. Someone nearby cleared their throat, but they did not break eye contact. “I believe we make a fearsome team.”

One of the hobbits jumped in at this point, which was good, because Legolas’s entire world had narrowed down to the only two words he could think:

 _Oh, no_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took some creative liberties with Dwarven customs here, though I tried my hardest to base them on what Tolkien wrote about them. I'm so deep in various Tolkien wikis right now that I'm not sure how to get out. But I am sorry if I manged to directly contradict anything in canon.
> 
> You might notice I didn't resist the urge to poke at some of the creative liberties other people (cough Peter Jackson cough) have taken with them. This was entirely on purpose and I'm not remotely sorry about that part. I'll go to my grave being angry about Elrond reading ancient Dwarvish and that stupid salad scene.
> 
> Hair-breading headcanons also aren't my thing, but it's chill if they're your thing. Chase your bliss. But if you don't find it funny to envision Gimli claiming that Dwarves [pull a Jenna Marbles when they travel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YllrAmXfrME), we probably won't get along.


	4. Fast Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ends where the movie ends, because for once I agree with Peter Jackson's choice to change it: the book ending is a little awkward, and for the characters I'm following, I felt it made more sense to follow the movie's example.

_The Company was arranged in this way: Aragorn, Frodo, and Sam were in one boat; Boromir, Merry, and Pippin in another; and in the third were Legolas and Gimli, who had now become fast friends._

_…_

_Then the Lady unbraided one of her long tresses, and cut off three golden hairs, and laid them in Gimli’s hand. ‘These words shall go with the gift,’ she said. ‘I do not foretell, for all foretelling is now vain: on the one hand lies darkness, and on the other only hope. But if hope should not fail, then I say to you, Gimli son of Glóin, that your hands shall flow with gold, and yet over you gold shall have no dominion._

_…_

_The travellers now turned their faces to the journey; the sun was before them, and their eyes were dazzled, for all were filled with tears. Gimli wept openly._

_‘I have looked the last upon that which was fairest,’ he said to Legolas his companion. ‘Henceforward I will call nothing fair, unless it be her gift.’ He put his hand to his breast._

_… ‘I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Lord. Alas for Gimli son of Glóin!’_

_‘Nay!’ said Legolas. ‘Alas for us all! And for all that walk the world in these after-days. For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it seems to those whose boat is on the running stream. But I count you blessed, Gimli son of Glóin: for your loss you suffer of your own free will, and you might have chosen otherwise. But you have not forsaken your companions, and the least reward that you shall have is that the memory of Lothlórien shall remain ever clear and unstained in your heart, and shall neither fade nor grow stale.’_

_‘Maybe,’ said Gimli; ‘and I thank you for your words. True words doubtless; yet all such comfort is cold. Memory is not what the heart desires. That is only a mirror, be it clear as Kheled-zâram. Or so says the heart of Gimli the Dwarf. Elves may see things otherwise. Indeed I have heard that for them memory is more like to the waking world than to a dream. Not so for Dwarves.’_

Legolas had relaxed around Gimli now, to the point where he seemed less uncomfortable in what Gimli had always thought of as companionable silence, but which perhaps was more awkward for Elves. But he would still rather speak, if only lightly, given the chance. They now had the chance, yet Legolas behind him in the boat was quiet.

They had spoken a little, coming out of Lórien. But perhaps Legolas, like Gimli, did not wish to dwell anymore on the beautiful land they were leaving behind, that had been so kind to him and in which he had learned so much. He would not weep openly for it again; but though the memory was sweet, it was indeed not enough, and the loss of it would always sting.

The silence and the gentle lapping of water slowly became soothing, and as such Gimli was startled nearly out of his skin when Legolas spoke.

“You were not the first, to ask for the Lady Galadriel’s hair,” he said. “Did you know?”

“No,” said Gimli. “But I am not surprised. It is beautiful, and it shines with light more lovely than any gem.”

He could almost feel Legolas smiling; certainly he heard it in his voice. “Fëanor, the maker of the Silmarils, begged her for a strand of hair. Three times, he asked. He admired its light, as you did. It is thought he wanted to make gems similar to the Silmarils, something just as beautiful. She refused him every time.”

“Yet when I said I would set it in crystal, she agreed,” Gimli said.

“She did,” said Legolas.

Gimli turned this thought over in his mind, but did not speak. He was not sure what to say.

“It is said she read only greed and darkness in his heart,” Legolas said, filling silence as he was wont to do. “Ever she opposed him for that reason.”

“Then you believe she read otherwise in the heart of a Dwarf,” Gimli said.

“I do.”

Gimli sighed. “She is a wise lady. We are wiser for knowing her, Legolas, I think.”

There was another smile in Legolas’s voice. “We are.”  
  


“Will your family find it strange?” said Merry to Gimli, one night when they had made camp and all was quiet, except perhaps their thoughts. “That you love an Elf?”

Legolas’s face did not heat up, but he did stare intently into the fire, confused and flustered and—

“What?” said Gimli, apparently as confused as Legolas.

“The Lady Galadriel,” said Pippin. “Wait, what else could we mean?”

Legolas breathed out, realizing only then that he had failed to do so for far too long. Of course. Galadriel.  


Gimli did not answer Pippin’s question.  


“It’s just, we’ve heard the Dwarves love only once,” said Merry. “You know, from Bilbo. Will they not think that odd?”

“Ah, I see you are determined to spill all our secrets,” said Gimli, smiling. Was the smile forced? Was it because the hobbits had forced this out of him? Why was he uncomfortable?

Aragorn was looking at him. Legolas quickly looked away and into their little fire.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Merry quickly. “I didn’t know—”

“It’s fine, lad,” said Gimli. “There is no one in this Company that I would hide such things that are not secrets from, not anymore. And you are right, but I would not say—I would not use so strong a word. I am an admirer only, for so fair a jewel is most beautiful in the place where it belongs. I am not fool enough to attempt to remove it, even if such a thing was possible.”

“But cannot you love from afar, even if it is not returned?” said Boromir.

“Sometimes,” said Gimli. “But it is rare. I fear and abhor the kind of love that consumes and is not returned; most Dwarves do. Even a dwarrowdam who cannot have her choice of partners will retreat from them and find other pursuits, so as not to dwell on a feeling not returned. It so easily turns to obsession, and becomes cruel instead of kind.”

“You are wiser than most men,” said Boromir. “For courtship can be messy, and many a man and woman have wanted what they could not have.”

Did Gimli’s eyes flicker to Legolas? He wasn’t sure, but Gimli did shrug.

“To break up a marriage or obsess over someone who does not care for you is a foul thing, among Dwarves,” he said. “It would not be well to speak of it, even if it did happen.”

Merry snorted, and they all looked at him, but it was Pippin who spoke. “Why should a marriage be only two people, then? Why not more, if the love between them is true?”

When they continued to stare, Merry looked directly back. “It takes quite a lot of people to raise hobbit children sometimes,” he told them. “Hobbits are very practical about that kind of thing.”

“Not everyone,” said Frodo. “My parents, it was just them. And some never look for anyone and are perfectly happy alone.”

“Like Bilbo,” said Pippin. “He wasn’t interested even before he went on the Quest.”

“Yes,” said Frodo. “Everyone does things in the way that works best for them.”

“That does explain a good bit about why hobbits are so willing to talk about their genealogy to anyone who will listen,” said Gimli, and though he covered it with geniality, his voice was still tense. “It must get quite complicated.”

“Oh, it does,” said Pippin cheerfully, not taking offense. “Our family charts could take up rooms, if we were to hang them on the wall!”

“Dwarves are more like Elves, then,” said Sam. If the hobbits noticed that they were each being stared at in turn, they did not show it. “One person, forever. But I had never yet heard that it was because they _could_ not love anyone else. That’s a difference, that is.”

“Dwarven courtship is also rare,” said Gimli. He would not look at Legolas now, and Legolas did not know why. Had they not passed the obstacle of being surprised at each other’s customs? Could they not now share without fear? Did Gimli still not quite trust him? “Many go their whole lives without meeting one person, let alone many. The Shire would likely be very overwhelming for a poor solitary Dwarf!”

“There are men who live that way, sometimes,” said Aragorn, breaking the silence of the others. Legolas noticed for the first time that he had not looked surprised a the hobbits’ words. “In Bree, for instance.” He shrugged. “It varies, as to who prefers it and who does not, as it does with whether a man loves men or women, or both, or neither. But it is not a thing unheard of.”

“Oh, we know Dwarves don’t care about _that_ ,” said Merry cheerfully. He was so loud that Frodo thumped him in the leg, then looked around warily. He took the cue and lowered his voice, but he wasn’t done. “Isn’t that so, Gimli?” He said, more quietly.

“Aye, most Dwarves do not care at all, or if they do care, they can love them all,” said Gimli. “For you left out a few genders, Aragorn, in your explanation.”

“For simplicity only,” said Aragorn. “But yes, among Men also there are those who are neither gender, and plenty of people who will love them. Though men tend to pay more attention to such things than Dwarves.” He also kept shooting glances into the trees and around the river, and though Legolas noticed this, he was too overwhelmed to think of it further.

“And apparently they don’t care if it’s an Elf either,” said Merry. At Gimli’s look, he flapped a hand. “Oh, I know, it’s not like that with Galadriel. But it’s the first I’ve heard of a Dwarf finding an Elf beautiful!”

“I wonder, does it ever go the other way?” said Sam speculatively; Legolas did not quite like the look he was giving him.

“If what Bilbo says is true, none of that matters to Elves either,” said Frodo.

He and Gimli were certainly _not_ looking at each other now. Had the hobbits done this on purpose? Legolas couldn’t help be suspicious, though what they could possibly hope to achieve, he did not know.

“It is true,” he heard himself say, as if from a distance. “Though I fear I must beg you not to ask more. Elves…we do not discuss this much, outside of courtship itself.”

This was not entirely true, for many Elves would indeed talk genially about the topic given a polite audience, and an Elf in love was prone to much poetry. But this did not feel polite, as much as it did…probing. It was Legolas himself that was uncomfortable, not Elves in general.

And in truth, he feared saying too much.

He felt ashamed immediately after using this excuse, for Merry looked horrified. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not mean to make you uncomfortable, I—”

“Do not be sorry,” said Legolas quickly. “I have enjoyed learning about your ways, I do not begrudge you the desire to learn more as well. Only…”

“Let’s talk about something else,” said Sam, coming to the rescue. “Before we find out if Elf ears can turn dark all the way.” Perhaps not entirely to his rescue. “Boromir, you must have stories of how it’s done in your city.”

Boromir launched into a story about how his grandparents had met (and Legolas noticed for the first time that he never spoke of his mother—he did not know why). He told his story quietly, but again Legolas did not or could not think too long on the tension among the company. He took a deep breath, feeling as though he had just come up for air. He could not truly say he had never been flustered before, but never in all his life had he felt anything like this. 

The hobbits, though they were listening to Boromir, also kept shooting him glances. He saw Frodo give Merry a surreptitious pat on the back—why, he did not know.

But more important was Gimli, who had avoided his gaze for so long, now had his eyes on Legolas now from the other side of the fire. And Legolas could not look away.  
  


_There was little speech and no laughter in any of the boats. Each member of the Company was busy with his own thoughts._

_The heart of Legolas was running under the stars of a summer night in some northern glade amid the beech-woods; Gimli was fingering gold in his mind, and wondering if it were fit to be wrought into the housing of the Lady’s gift._

The hours in the boat were long, but they passed in silence that Gimli found restful and that Legolas seemed not to mind. Once they got used to operating the boat, he and Legolas worked in perfect sync. Speech was not necessary; they both let their minds drift, wandering over pleasant thoughts that distracted from the dreary lands.

Sometimes Legolas would sing softly, so softly that none of the others heard, and Gimli wasn’t sure he knew he was doing it. Gimli said nothing; for he did not want Legolas to stop, even when he trailed off, forgot the words, and started on another verse entirely.

Very, very rarely, Gimli would hum softly to himself, and Legolas would make up his own words to old Dwarven tunes. Gimli liked that best of all; the melodies sounded even more beautiful to his ears, for how they blended together. They were strange, but the strangeness only made it more lovely to him.

Maybe the hobbits had gotten into his head with all their talk of courtship, for even though Gimli thought much about Lothlórien, and the Lady, and the honor she had bestowed on him—even though he wished deeply that he could get his hands on a hammer and begin the work of crafting something for it—he also thought much about Legolas.

It could hardly be avoided, with him right behind Gimli in their boat. And in turn, it was harder and harder to deny the thing that was growing between them.

For Men, Gimli had heard, attraction did not always come with love, though the former usually came before the latter. For most Dwarves, attraction was a vague and formless thing, sometimes acted upon then forgotten immediately afterward by both parties. It only crystallized and became consuming when a strong bond was formed between them.

Gimli was starting to worry that such a bond had already formed, on his side at least. And though he knew that Elves were monogamous almost to the point of absurdity, in not only marriage but in all matters of love, he did not know if it would mean the same thing for both of them.

Legolas was singing again. Gimli listened, as he always did—and it was his own song, from the mines.

He smiled, almost in spite of himself, almost helplessly. And then began, softly, to sing along with Legolas.

There was no sound from any of the other boats, but they did not notice that they were the only ones to sing at all, even quietly.  
  


Gimli never asked him to stop singing. Instead, he sang along. Their voices blended quietly underneath the sound of the paddles on the water and the sound made Legolas’s heart grow warm and ache in a way he had never felt before.

They were less attuned to the uneasiness of the lands about them than perhaps they should have been, but it eventually got to them both, and they fell silent for a time, with no other words than “We should veer left a bit” and “That’s enough, we are well out of Aragorn’s wake” and the like.

When Gimli spoke, his words startled Legolas as much as hearing the sound of his voice, for he said:

“Will you tell me of Mirkwood? This dreary land is nearly sending me to sleep, and I have heard little of your home from anyone who lives there.”

Legolas blinked, but quickly rallied. “What have you heard? That it is dark and cheerless, and full of danger?”

“Yes,” said Gimli. “But it cannot be so throughout, or someone such as you—” he stopped suddenly, and coughed, as if covering something he had been about to say. Legolas was filled with a deep longing to know what it was, but it was not to be. Instead, Gimli added gruffly, “What I mean is, you are not cheerless or evil, nor are your people aligned with the Enemy. And you love trees and growing things, so I cannot picture you living in and loving an evil place.”

“You are right,” said Legolas. “My home is not altogether so dark and grim as some of the outer reaches of the forest. It is a great forest, once green and wholesome, and there is nothing so painful as watching it become corrupted when we can do nothing to stop it.”

“But the part where you live is still beautiful?”

“Yes,” said Legolas. “It is a beech forest, the most beautiful in the world. Would you know a beech tree if you saw one?”

He meant no offense with the question, and Gimli did not take any, but laughed. “No,” he said. “Any more than you could tell quartz from granite, I think!”

“I made no such claim,” said Legolas, smiling. “But you shall tell me one day, and now I shall tell you of beech trees: they are tall and straight, with smooth gray bark, and in a forest they remain thin even as they stand for hundreds of years, so there is much space for the light to fall through between their trunks. When they line the side of a path, it is like walking through a pillared hall, only green and still.” He sighed. He missed many of the beech trees at home, wished to hear their voices again, though he knew that would not happen for many months at least. “I would tell you of their leaf shape, but it is harder to describe. Someday I shall show you instead.”

“I look forward to it,” Gimli said. Legolas was surprised at his tone; he was fairly sure Gimli actually meant it. “Are they yellow in the autumn, like the mallorns?”

“Yes,” said Legolas. “A beech glade in Autumn is nearly as golden as Lothlórien. The light itself filters down through the trees and makes the woods fairly glow. And in summer the glow is green, and the voices of the trees whisper in the wind. I do not know what I love more—the fresh smell of spring, the hot green smell of summer, or the mustiness of the Autumn. But in those woods is peace, even with the enemy crawling in around the edges.”

“That’s right,” said Gimli. “You were as restless there as I was at home. Even there, in the beech forest?”

“Even among the beeches,” said Legolas, sighing again. “My father actually called me in to rebuke me. He could tell I was growing anxious—even angry.”

Legolas saw Gimli, ahead of him, nod. It was subtle, hard to tell from behind, but he was watching his friend intently. “I was working with _iron_ ,” he said. When Legolas didn’t respond, he snorted. “Gandalf was right that iron is the Dwarves’ servant; it’s useful, and certainly you can do beautiful things with it, but I couldn’t focus properly on anything intricate. It got so bad I was just making nails, which we do sometimes for practice, or to learn on. Even you, with no training, could probably make them well enough.”

“There are great smiths among Elves,” said Legolas mildly.

“I didn’t say Elves, I said you,” Gimli pointed out, actually turning around to shoot him a grin. Legolas smiled back, almost helplessly. He was beginning to think he’d do anything to see a smile like that daily.

“I suppose that is fair,” Legolas said. “I do not think you would do so well hunting among the trees with a bow, after all.”

Gimli laughed. “I certainly would not! My axe is a better weapon with which to hew down Orcs.”

“I wish we’d had your axe on the day Gollum escaped,” Legolas said. “Perhaps you and I could have stopped them.”

“We do well together in battle,” said Gimli. “I think we will do even better now.”

“We will need to hold a competition in true, to see who kills the most,” said Legolas.

“Yes!” said Gimli. “I had forgotten. But I think you will meet your match, my friend!”

“We shall see,” said Legolas. But then their conversation ended, for the boat had become to drift, and they fell back once again to “Left, left—a little right—that’s good!” and so on.

They did not speak again for a long time, but Legolas’s heart was warm simply from Gimli’s presence, and he did not mind.  
  


_‘What is that, Legolas?’ he asked, pointing to the northern sky. ‘Is it, as I think, an eagle?’_

_‘Yes,’ said Legolas. ‘It is an eagle, a hunting eagle. I wonder what that forebodes. It is far from the mountains.’_

_‘We will not start until it is fully dark,’ said Aragorn._

Legolas did not think it forebode anything ill. In fact, his heart lifted to see it.

But he could not read the riddle. He did not say anything of it, and merely hoped he was not missing anything as great as he had in Hollin.  
  


_A few low trees grew there close to the water, and behind them rose a steep rocky bank. Here the Company decided to stay and await the dawn: it was useless to attempt to move further by night. They made no camp and lit no fire, but lay huddled in the boats, moored close together._

_‘Praised be the bow of Galadriel, and the hand and eye of Legolas!’ said Gimli, as he munched a wafer of lembas. ‘That was a mighty shot in the dark, my friend!’_

_‘But who can say what it hit?’ said Legolas._

_‘I cannot,’ said Gimli. ‘But I am glad that the shadow came no nearer. I liked it not at all. Too much it reminded me of the shadow in Moria – the shadow of the Balrog,’ he ended in a whisper._

_‘It was not a Balrog,’ said Frodo, still shivering with the chill that had come upon him. ‘It was something colder. I think it was—’ Then he paused and fell silent._

Indeed, the feeling of dread he had not felt over the eagle came later, after his arrow hit its mark. He should have been proud of his hit, but he did not like what he saw in Frodo’s face.

His uneasiness must have shown on his own face, for Gimli patted his arm comfortingly. “There’s nothing we can do tonight,” he said. “But sleep well and continue in the morning.”

“The same could be said for many of our days,” said Legolas. They exchanged faint smiles in the gray night. “But that does not dampen your wisdom. I will try.”

And he did manage, for a time. Gimli’s warmth next to him in the boat did more to ease his heart than his words.  
  


_Legolas stirred in his boat. ‘Nay, time does not tarry ever,’ he said; ‘but change and growth is not in all things and places alike. For the Elves the world moves, and it moves both very swift and very slow. Swift, because they themselves change little, and all else fleets by: it is a grief to them. Slow, because they need not count the running years, not for themselves. The passing seasons are but ripples ever repeated in the long long stream. Yet beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last.’_

Gimli did not sleep well after these words from Legolas, and Frodo’s revelation of Galadriel’s ring. When he did rest, his dreams were troubled, and when he was awake, he could not stop thinking.

For the first time, he thought of the unbearable sadness that came of being an Elf. He had thought since Lórien that the sadness was for mortals only, to lose such beauty too soon, and to never see fully all the works of Elves. But it was not so. For the Elves ever tarried, as their friends left them one by one.

His heart ached for Galadriel, for the Golden Wood, and indeed for Legolas also. Such bare honesty he had rarely heard from his friend, and it pierced him deeply.

As he stared up at the stars, and the moon slowly passing, he wondered how the stars looked to the Elves, who valued them so highly yet almost did not notice their changes. He was glad for the first time that each moment was important to him for itself alone, as precious as valuable as gold.

Previously, he had thought Elves separated themselves from the world out of disdain for it. Now he knew that they were not separate from it at all, more tied to it than any of them, and saddened all the time by loss that they could only observe from afar.

Yet he was still jealous. For he was also sad, for the first time, that he would not have more time with—with those he loved.

Gimli felt Legolas’s eyes on him almost as soon as they turned towards him.

“You are awake,” Legolas said in a low tone, not quite a whisper, which would have carried to the others.

“I am uneasy,” Gimli confessed. “And don’t you dare say it—I know.” In the dark, he signed _fool_ to himself.

“Ever wisdom given is not taken by the giver,” Legolas said anyway, but with a smile that Gimli could hear in his voice. “What keeps you awake, my friend?”

“The passing of time, and the ending of all things,” said Gimli truthfully, for under the stars and in the darkness he could not find a lie. _Fool. Too honest; hold back. Fool._

“Ah,” said Legolas, barely breathing out the word. “If there is a worthier reason to lose sleep, I do not know it.”

“Don’t make fun,” said Gimli. _Fool._ “This is your doing—I had not previously known that Elves were full of such grief.”

“I wasn’t teasing,” said Legolas. He shifted, and after a moment Gimli realized that Legolas had turned to lie so that his head was resting on his shoulder. He had done it gracefully, barely rocking the boat at all.

Gimli did not dare to breathe, lest Legolas decide it was a mistake and move.

“I am sorry to have burdened you,” said Legolas.

“Don’t be,” Gimli whispered, so softly it could have been the breeze. “I would bear your burdens if I could. But you can tell me anything.” He did not sign the word he was thinking; he was too afraid to move.

It almost hurt to say, to speak such truth even in the dark. But he was well rewarded, for looking over he saw Legolas’s smile, faint in the starlight but unmistakably there.

“So can you,” Legolas said, and closed his eyes.

Gimli let out a breath at last, and did the same.

His dreams for the rest of the night were quiet, and filled with the sound of trees.  
  


_It was decided that Aragorn and Legolas should at once go forward along the shore, while the others remained by the boats. Aragorn hoped to find some way by which they could carry both their boats and their baggage to the smoother water beyond the Rapids._

They did not speak much at first, for concentration and caution were needed in the unknown lands as they searched for a way around the rapids. Legolas was content to let Aragorn search, with ranger skills that were his specialty, and instead kept a sharp eye on the lands for danger.

And indeed it was Aragorn who found the portage-way, but still they were cautious as they went down it. Not until the way back to the boats and the company did either of them speak.

Legolas had time now to look up at the crumbling cliffs along which the road ran, wondering at how the rocks loomed out of the fog. He wondered if plants grew here in the warmer months; plants that would be both hardy and stubborn.

Aragorn caught him staring. “It is quite different than Mirkwood, is it not?”

“Yes,” said Legolas. “But not unlovely. I have found many things that are strange to me yet more beautiful for their strangeness, recently.”

Aragorn raised his eyebrows, and Legolas fought the urge to duck his head. But, “You have changed much,” was all Aragorn said in response.

“I know,” said Legolas. “And so quickly. But many things were made clear to me Lórien.”

“The Golden Wood has a way of doing that,” said Aragorn, nodding. He smiled at Legolas. “For I, too, found great beauty there.”

“Arwen,” said Legolas. He hesitated. Aragorn had only spoken of her once, and even then it was obliquely, since they set out. “Is it hard, for a mortal man, to be so far apart from one you love, for what for you is a long time?”

“It is,” said Aragorn. “I think it is for her as well, knowing how short our time is and will be. Yet I do not begrudge my duty to help make the world safer. It is a long labor, but worthwhile, and it is both our hopes that we shall be happier for it.”

“Of course,” said Legolas. “And she and Lord Elrond also labor in their own way to keep Rivendell and the lands around it safe.”

“Yes,” said Aragorn. “All of Middle-Earth is involved in this war, one way or another. It marches on all borders.”

“Yet I also do not regret leaving home,” said Legolas. But he was thinking almost unwillingly of Gimli and how upset he would be, even after a few months, if their already-short time was cut shorter by long separation. He sighed. He would not even be able to imagine the feeling, had he not left. “There are many things I would have missed, if I had stayed.”

Aragorn looked at him for a long moment. Whatever he read in Legolas’s face must have been revealing, for he said, “Will you tell him?”

“Tell who what?” said Legolas, heart suddenly pounding far too hard.

“Ah,” said Aragorn. “I see. Never mind.”

He did not speak again, and Legolas only barely did not give in to the desire to pester him, hobbit-like, with questions until he gave a clear answer.  
  


_‘I fear we must leave the River now, and make for the portage-way as best we can from here.’_

_‘That would not be easy, even if we were all Men,’ said Boromir._

_‘Yet such as we are we will try it,’ said Aragorn._

_‘Aye, we will,’ said Gimli. ‘The legs of Men will lag on a rough road, while a Dwarf goes on, be the burden twice his own weight, Master Boromir!’_

…

_Then the boats were drawn out of the water and carried up. They were far less heavy than any had expected. Of what tree growing in the Elvish country they were made not even Legolas knew; but the wood was tough and yet strangely light. Merry and Pippin alone could carry their boat with ease along the flat. Nonetheless it needed the strength of the two Men to lift and haul them over the ground that the Company now had to cross. It sloped up away from the River, a tumbled waste of grey limestone-boulders, with many hidden holes shrouded with weeds and bushes; there were thickets of brambles, and sheer dells; and here and there boggy pools fed by waters trickling from the terraces further inland._

It was hard labor indeed carrying the baggage behind Aragorn and Boromir moving the boats. The two men found their own way, faster or slower than the rest of them depending on the terrain, and the rest of them traveled back and forth mostly together.

Still, despite the difficulty, Gimli found himself grinning when Frodo asked what kind of wood the boats were made of. Legolas took about twenty minutes to say he did not know, naming every tree he could think of with similar wood and then deciding that he was not at all sure.

“Is it in the nature of Elves, then to give a lecture rather than admit outright that you don’t know the answer?” Gimli said with a grin, when Legolas was done.

The hobbits all laughed, and Legolas looked sheepish.

“It certainly is when you ask them for advice,” said Frodo. “Gildor, who we met in the Shire before we left, gave me a long speech simply to tell me that it was up to me to decide what to do.”

“That certainly sounds Elvish,” said Gimli, and did not temper the fondness in his voice. “Dwarves, now, Dwarves do not waste time on speeches.”

“When you speak at all!” said Legolas. “It is a wonder you do not grow old waiting to decide what to say!”

“You’d think immortal beings would have learned more patience,” said Gimli to the hobbits, who were now looking deeply amused. He then nearly sunk into a hidden hole on the difficult ground, but quickly righted himself.

“You’d think mortals wouldn’t waste so much time!” Legolas retorted, helping him up. They grinned at each other.

“You remind me of my Uncle Ferumbras and his husband,” said Pippin cheerfully, then paused to pick his way around a boggy pool of water surrounded by soft ground. When they were all back on slightly more even ground, he continued as if nothing had happened. The mood had lightened perceptibly, and Gimli could not say why, but the hobbits all looked at ease for the first time in days, despite their hard labor. “Well, I say Uncle. Really my second cousin, but we always said Uncle for short. Anyway, we joke that Everard’s never said a word in his life, Uncle Ferumbras says all of them for him.”

“Still gets his way most of the time, though,” Merry said. “Even with Ferumbras’s mother Lalia hanging over both their shoulders.”

“Well, of course,” said Pippin. “It _is_ Uncle Everard.”

Gimli looked at Legolas, to find that Legolas was already looking at him. In unison, they both smiled and shook their heads. Strange as the ways of Elves and Dwarves might be to the other, the ways of hobbits were even stranger, and yet they were so good-natured that Gimli often found himself accepting whatever they said without questioning it. And it had been days and days since they’d heard any Shire gossip; now, Gimli wondered vaguely at the lack of it.

“You should tell the story of how they met,” said Sam. “Pass the time a bit, while we go back and forth.” He reached out an arm to help Frodo up over a boulder, and Frodo took it gratefully.

“Why? You’ve already heard i— _oh_ ,” said Pippin, catching the look on Sam’s face, though what it meant Gimli couldn’t say.

“Yes, Pip, Gimli and Legolas haven’t heard any of your stories,” said Merry, seemingly to cover for him.

“Right,” said Pippin. “Well, Everard was a Sackville— _was_ , don’t worry, we cured him of it—and so of course they hated each other.”

“No one likes the Sackvilles,” said Frodo. He paused as he navigated the terrain again. “Of all the things, the sinkholes of water are the worst!” He said, pulling out a drenched foot; the foot would dry quickly, but the hems of his pants were also wet, and that would take longer. Gimli did not doubt they would all be similarly drenched by the time they were done.

“It’s not far at all, but Boromir was right—it’s exhausting,” agreed Merry, wiping his forehead.

“Anyway, Great Aunt Lalia didn’t exactly get along with everyone either,” said Pippin, carrying on the conversation. 

“She became head of the family after her husband the Thain passed,” Merry said to Gimli and Legolas, as though that explained everything.

“She was all right for a while,” said Pippin. “But when she got older—well, the less said about that the better.”

“Yes, because she was so frustrating that your sister Pearl pushed her down the stairs to her death,” said Merry.

“Rumors and hearsay,” said Pippin loftily. “I’ll thank you not to repeat _gossip_.”

“I thought the Shire was wholesome and gentle,” said Gimli. He was entirely joking; he’d met Bilbo and heard his stories, after all.

Still, all the hobbits laughed. “When people still tell stories of my mother pushing my father into the lake and him pulling her in after, drowning them both!” said Frodo.

“Now, you shouldn’t be repeating gossip neither, Master Frodo,” said Sam reproachfully. “It doesn’t matter what old Ted Sandyman says, everyone who knows them knows that couldn’t be true.”

“I know,” said Frodo, smiling fondly at Sam. “I would never take it to heart, Sam. I know how the Shire likes to talk, and I suppose Bilbo has worn off on me, for I will never care what people say.”

“It seems you come up with morbid stories of your own to make up for the lack of real ones,” said Gimli. He carefully picked his way around a thorn bush, then huffed in exasperation when he saw his way blocked by a marshy and deceptively grassy patch of land.

“Maybe,” said Frodo. “And it can hurt, at times. But most of it is more benign!”

“ _Anyway_ ,” said Pippin. “They used to fight all the time. Uncle Ferumbras was only ever really quiet around Great Aunt Lalia, you see. And Uncle Everard thought he talked too much, without ever saying anything interesting. But then Uncle Everard heard her harassing him over something or other, and he actually stood up for Uncle Ferumbras! And it worked—she was so shocked she actually stopped!”

“Was she very angry?” said Legolas. He was having less trouble than the rest of them, but even he was having to carefully pick his way foreward, and dodge as many obstacles as the rest of them. Gimli did not know if it was as exhausting for him, but he did notice the growing furrow of concentration on his forehead with amusement and fondness.

“At first,” said Pippin. “But not for long. She actually laughed, and said Ferumbras could use a friend like that, for when he was getting bullied by mean old ladies like her. She told him to come around sometime and say hello, and he did. They started courting not long after, and when they were married Great Aunt Lalia actually took over his little bachelor pad house and gave him the big hole. She moved back in with them when she started getting ill, of course, and then it was hard for them all for a few years.”

“Until Pearl murdered her,” said Merry. They were walking through thick weeds now, which should have been a blessing, but they were tall and scratched at the skin, even the tough hide of a Dwarf. It was not enjoyable to be both itchy and slightly damp.

“Lies!” cried Pippin. “She tripped on the stairs, and the wheelchair went falling!” As if on cue, he sunk knee-deep into a hidden pool of water, and nearly toppled sideways. Fortunately they were on their way back to the boats and not carrying anything heavy. The hobbits all laughed, then helped to pull him out.

“Your sister Pearl always was clumsy,” said Sam. “Didn’t she break an entire cabinet full of plates once?”

“Never had to do the dishes after that, I bet,” said Merry. Pippin shoved him as best he could without sending him into a thicket of briars, and Merry cackled.

Which of course was infectious, and made both Legolas and Gimli laugh. “I shall steer clear of your sister Pearl if I ever come to the Shire, just to be safe,” Gimli said.

“Uncle Ferumbras would like you, though,” said Pippin. “He would like you both.”

“But he only had one husband?” said Gimli.

“Oh, yes,” said Pippin. “He said one was difficult enough to find, and even then it took quite a while for them to get along. Not at all like my Aunt Bella, who really is my aunt. She has three wives, and they have plenty of other suitors coming and going, and all the Took children are in and out of their house all day!”

“Does that not become complicated?” said Legolas.

“Not with Aunt Bella,” said Pippin. “She’s too good-natured. It puts everyone else around her in a good mood too.”

“Everyone loves your Aunt Bella,” said Frodo. “Ferumbras and Everard are lovely, but you have to get to know them.”

“Yes, Ferumbras seems very full of himself, and Everard very grumpy,” said Merry. “And they’re both horribly stubborn. They both have kind hearts, but it takes one some time to find that out.”

“Which explains why they get on so well,” said Sam. “It takes a hard personality to love a harder one, my gaffer says.”

“It is strange, isn’t it, how often hate is a mask for some other emotion that neither party truly understands?” said Legolas, thoughtfully.

“Yes,” said Gimli. “It is a poison that kills. Yet if an understanding can be reached, it can turn into something beautiful indeed.”

The hobbits were grinning at each other again, but Gimli only barely noticed. Legolas looked so happy that he had no further interest in pondering the strangeness of hobbits.  
  


“I believe it is your turn,” Legolas said to Gimli on another trip to the portage-way, after a time of one too many accidents made them fall into silence and focus on picking their paths. They had found their way now, and were less prone to disaster, but it was still difficult work. It was harder than it looked not to move in a straight line, and constantly dodge obstacles while carrying a heavy load. When Gimli looked at him, he added: “You must tell us something of your home. For you have heard of mine, and we now have enough Shire-gossip to last years.”

“No you don’t,” said Pippin. “If anything, you’re months and months behind on it.”

Legolas ignored this; Pippin didn’t seem to expect an answer. “Or, if you have talked enough of the Mountain, tell us a story of your family. Or more about Dwarves.”

Gimli blinked at him. “I’m not sure I can think of anything, with so little to go on. Is there something you’d like to know?”

Legolas hesitated, not sure if he could ask. As he did, he shifted his baggage and held out a free arm on instinct to help Gimli jump over a wide pool of water. And remembered Gimli, saying—

_You can tell me anything_.

“There is much,” Legolas said, as Gimli made his landing and let go of his arm. Was it his imagination or did Gimli’s fingers linger, just a bit? “But why do you sometimes gesture with your hands while you speak, as if they are saying something along with your words?”

“I’ve never seen him do that,” said Pippin in confusion.

Was it his imagination, or was Gimli very flustered? He stepped to the side, to stand out of the way of the hobbits, who were now making the jump themselves, with Legolas’s help.

“Ah,” he said. “A bad habit, I’m afraid. I don’t do it always. But since you ask—I sometimes speak to myself unconsciously in the sign language of Dwarves.”

“Dwarves have a sign language?” said Legolas with great interest.

“It is secret,” said Gimli. “But it came because are times when Dwarves have need of speech without noise. We work in loud rooms, and in deep mines where sound might disturb stone, and a silent and swift exit is needed. To be without any communication in such situations would be dangerous indeed.”

“But why is it kept so secret?” said Legolas. “Or is it simply a matter of circumstance?”

Gimli shot him a sideways look, then seemed to make up his mind about something, and grinned a bit sheepishly. “Well, it is also sometimes used for silent conversation around non-Dwarves,” he admitted. “In bargaining, or meetings with leaders, to share information secretly.”

“So that’s why it is a bad habit,” said Legolas, helping Sam, the last of them to jump, to solid ground. “Because you are accidentally giving away state secrets!”

“No, no,” said Gimli, laughing. “It is because it’s used in very controlled ways, normally. A misunderstanding while at work could be fatal, and an un-subtle sign in public could be disastrous. My father trained me to be careful out loud and with my hands. Good advice for a Dwarf in many situations.”

“Is that why you never do it around us?” said Merry.

“Yes,” said Gimli. They were moving again, and he was staring straight ahead, not looking at any of them.

“But you sometimes slip into it around me,” Legolas couldn’t help saying. 

The hobbits, whom Legolas was learning were much wiser than they seemed, suddenly feigned extreme difficulty with the terrain and dropped back several paces, leaving them alone, or as alone as they could be.

“Yes,” said Gimli again. When Legolas was silent, because that wasn’t nearly enough of an answer, he looked sideways at him again. “I suppose—I suppose I am comfortable, around you. As comfortable as I am at home.”

Legolas swallowed, suddenly overwhelmed with an emotion he feared to name. “I am honored,” he said quietly.

“Don’t expect me to teach you any of it,” said Gimli gruffly, but Legolas wasn’t fooled. “My ancestors would spontaneously rise up as one to berate me.”

“Let’s not have that,” said Legolas, keeping his voice as light as he could. “You must leave me to guess, and I will decipher the code on my own.”

At this, Gimli smiled. “I wish you luck with that, my friend,” he said. And then he launched into a story about how a distant cousin of his had almost lost several fingers due to a mistaken sign. The hobbits caught up with them, gasping and laughing at the right moments. Legolas allowed the sound of Gimli’s storytelling voice to wash over him, even as he wondered what it would be like if he was telling it silently.  
  


_Then with little further hindrance, save from sprawling briars and many fallen stones, they moved forward all together. Fog still hung in veils upon the crumbling rock-wall, and to their left mist shrouded the River: they could hear it rushing and foaming over the sharp shelves and stony teeth of Sarn Gebir, but they could not see it. Twice they made the journey, before all was brought safe to the southern landing._

On the last trip to down portage-way carrying baggage only, Gimli found himself walking behind Aragorn and Legolas, with the hobbits between him and Boromir at the rear. The path was easy, but conversation had mostly ceased; the whole party was tired from their labors. Or perhaps there was something more at work—the hobbits had once again fallen almost completely silent, as though whatever burden they’d been shouldering before their early labor had fallen once again.

He did not have much time or indeed energy to contemplate that. He was too busy fighting to remain upright.

And yet, tired as he was, Gimli still noticed almost immediately that Aragorn seemed to be watching them. He and Legolas were walking side by side, with Aragorn slightly ahead of them, yet Aragorn kept darting looks at them.

He glanced at Legolas, who did not seem to notice. He was studying the cliffs, though he must have seen them twice already. Gimli wondered what was so interesting about them, at least to an Elf.

“We’re back to limestone,” he said to Legolas, who startled and looked at him. “I suppose Lórien was a deposit of granite, 

Legolas nodded thoughtfully. “Will you tell me more of limestone? You mentioned, in Hollin, that it is often used to build, but you said nothing else.”

Gimli snorted. “You mean, I lashed out at you for poking that Elvish nose of yours into Dwarvish business! Little did I know that I would be resigned to answering endless questions for days and days to come!”

Legolas laughed. “As I recall it, I kept pushing even though it was so clearly none of my business! But you cannot fault my curiosity, for in truth you are the most interesting person I’ve met in all my years. The ways of the Dwarves are not the only thing I wish to hear from you.”

Gimli’s ears burned at that, and he was glad for the combination of a helmet, thick hair, and dark skin to hide them. This did not stop Aragorn from looking at them meaningfully, though once again Legolas did not seem to notice. “Well, I don’t know if an Elf will even understand,” he began gruffly, to more laughter from Legolas.

“I’m not sure you understood anything I said about beech trees,” he said. “Yet you listened. Give me a chance to do the same!”

“It is very different from granite,” said Gimli. Tired as he was, thinking about rock and stone made him perk up. It was probably the only thing he could have found words to talk about. “It is more similar to sandstone, in its makeup. Most limestone is made of up of the bones of thousands of tiny creatures, ground fine and compressed. And yet it is strong.”

“You say ‘most’ limestone is made this way,” said Legolas. “What other kinds are there?”

It was a good question; very good. Gimli smiled at Legolas, surprised yet pleased that his friend would listen when he talked at length about these matters. “There is one found in caves, that is made of what water running over rock leaves behind when it evaporates.” The Dwarves had a name for this substance, but he did not say it—and he did not know the word in the Common Tongue. “It makes beautiful caves, for as the water wears over it, the shapes it makes are unlike anything else seen on the earth.”

“I have walked in limestone caves,” said Aragorn. “With great pools of still water. In Rohan. They were indeed beautiful.”

“I do not think I should be at home in such a place!” said Legolas, clearly repulsed but trying to be polite about it. Aragorn and Gimli both gave him indulgent looks.

“It is good for building, too,” said Gimli. “In that way it is like granite. It is easy to cut, and to carve into intricate shapes. And it wears well; it can stand for centuries. Small wonder that the Elves built with it! Look how many shapes it makes here, crumbling down as it does.”

“What would you carve into these limestone cliffs, if you could?” said Legolas.

“I don’t know that I would,” said Gimli in perfect honesty. “Such rock is perfectly capable of shaping itself. It does not cry out to be worked with; it is lonely and severe, and best left alone.”

Legolas now stared at him in wonder, and Gimli smiled at him. “Don’t look so shocked. Sometimes it is wise to let things be.”

“It is said in Gondor that true wisdom and skill comes from knowing when to do so, and when it is time to act,” said Aragorn. 

“The Dwarves have a similar saying,” said Gimli, though he did not repeat it. The translation was much the same, anyway.

“So do the Elves,” said Legolas. “And I would not be surprised if the hobbits did also. It seems there is much in common among the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth.”

“It has always been so,” said Aragorn. “And we likely have much in common with Harad and the Southrons, too. It is through lies of the Enemy that they are deceived and fight against us. Divisions are so often superficial, yet still hard to move past.”

“You have been nearly everywhere,” said Gimli. “You must have practice moving past them with all kinds of different people.”

Aragorn smiled faintly. “I suppose I have. It is a skill hard-earned, from never truly belonging anywhere.”

“It will not always be so,” said Legolas. “Your place is waiting, and it will be ready for you when arrive.”

“So I have often been told,” said Aragorn. “But the years it has taken to reach it are long, for a mortal.”

Gimli cleared his throat. “Perhaps you will take the wisdom of a people so often in exile, then; for though we often are displaced and long for home, we say also that you can carry a piece of home everywhere, so long as you have family with you.”

Aragorn looked troubled. “Family is also something that I do not—”

“I was not quite finished,” said Gimli. He did not say it angrily; he had learned that his companions were not used to the long pauses Dwarves sometimes took, as they formulated their thoughts. “The rest is, that family is not always blood. I think, Strider, that you have found a bit of one already.”

Aragorn blinked at him, then smiled, slowly. “I suppose we all have, if that’s so.”

“It is,” said Legolas softly. “And you shall have us, for as long as you need us.”

At this, Aragorn sighed. “And yet I do not know where my path shall take me next, while even our small family, so tightly bound, grows restless and begins to fracture.”

Gimli would have patted his shoulder, if his arms weren’t full and if Aragorn wasn’t two feet taller than him. “There is yet time to figure it out,” was all he could say, cold comfort as it was. But his feet were lagging, his arms were growing heavy, and he feared he had no other words left in him tonight.

“We are almost there,” said Legolas, seeing his expression. “And we will rest well tonight.”

“I hope so!” said Gimli, as they drew up to the end of their path and the end of the day. It was growing dark, and the fog had not lifted. It looked to be a dreary night, but he did not doubt he would sleep all the way through it.  
  


_‘Well, here we are, and here we must pass another night,’ said Boromir. ‘We need sleep, and even if Aragorn had a mind to pass the Gates of Argonath by night, we are all too tired – except, no doubt, our sturdy dwarf.’_

_Gimli made no reply: he was nodding as he sat._

Legolas could not help the look of deep affection he gave Gimli’s half-asleep form, no matter how meaningfully Aragorn looked at him afterwards.  
  


_As Frodo was borne towards hem the great pillars rose like towers to meet him. Giants they seemed to him, vast grey figures silent but threatening. Then he saw that they were indeed shaped and fashioned: the craft and power of old had wrought upon them, and still they preserved through the suns and rains of forgotten years the mighty likenesses in which they had been hewn. Upon great pedestals founded in the deep waters stood two great kings of stone: still with blurred eyes and crannied brows they frowned upon the North._

Even over the sound of rushing water, Legolas heard Gimli’s gasp of astonishment as they neared the statues of the kings of Gondor.

Yet though Legolas had never traveled this far nor paid much attention to the goings-on in the South, he could remember a time when this was the northern border of Gondor, and when these statues had been built.

Time passed so strangely for the rest of the world, for mortal beings. He did not fear the slow weathering of years; but suddenly he could see why Men did.

Still, this was not—could not be—the reason for Gimli’s low gasp, which Gimli himself confirmed once they had passed through the corridor.

“Did you see their construction, Legolas?” he said when speech was again possible. “Limestone, of course, just like the cliffs. I told you it wears well! And yet I suppose this is why I could think of nothing to carve into it, for the great kings of men had already thought of it and done it. See how they brought in stone for the upper layers, and how their skill in carving has kept the wear minimal!”

“And yet it does wear,” said Legolas. “As do all the works of mortals, and indeed of the Elves also, try as we do to preserve it. Still we must lose everything, in the end.”

If he was thinking of people rather than statues, he hoped Gimli could not tell.

“That does not stop even mortal men, so short-lived, from creating great works,” said Gimli. “And if the work of your hands outlives you, even if only in song and story, are you ever truly dead?”

“I do not know,” said Legolas, startled. “Those are deep waters, through which I have not tread. Is this what Dwarves believe?”

“Not exactly,” said Gimli, growing gruff as he often did when speaking of the secret beliefs of Dwarves. “But I would say it is the hope of every Dwarf to leave something of their own make behind, if only for their family.”

“You will,” said Legolas immediately, so sure that he could not entirely tell whether he foretold or simply knew his friend very, very well. “You will make many great things. But their mark on Middle-Earth will not be as great as your deeds.”

Gimli was silent, for a long time. Legolas drew on his recently-refined patience, and did not speak or apologize, but waited.

“I thank you,” said Gimli at last, quietly. “I do not say you are right—but I thank you.”

Legolas let out a breath. “You will see, in time. I shall be there to watch.”

“I think, Legolas, that you and I will do much together,” said Gimli. “If we are granted the chance.”

Always, always, that was the unspoken doubt in every conversation about the future. For another day, Legolas sought to do as his mortal companions did, and focus on the moment he was in; the present. He pushed the shadow of despair aside, and thought only of the warmth in his heart.  
  


_‘He fled, certainly,’ said Aragorn, ‘but not, I think, from Orcs.’ What he thought was the cause of Frodo’s sudden resolve and flight Aragorn did not say. The last words of Boromir he long kept secret._

Later—much, much later when the truth was revealed at last—Legolas and Gimli both would wonder why they had not seen it coming. How such an evil could have been growing among the company, but they only noticed a vague uneasiness and nothing more. Nothing like this.

For though the journey was perilous and the days were long and hard, they both chiefly remembered their time and conversation together. They spent less attention on the rest of the fellowship, and Boromir least of all, for he had grown silent and brooding and spoke only of returning to Minas Tirith.

Yet they were not wholly caught by surprise when the attack came, for Aragorn at least was watchful.  
  


_He knelt for a while, bent with weeping, still clasping Boromir’s hand. So it was that Legolas and Gimli found him. They came from the western slopes of the hill, silently, creeping through the trees as if they were hunting. Gimli had his axe in hand, and Legolas his long knife: all his arrows were spent. When they came into the glade they halted in amazement; and then they stood a moment with heads bowed in grief, for it seemed to them plain what had happened._

_‘Alas!’ said Legolas, coming to Aragorn’s side. ‘We have hunted and slain many Orcs in the woods, but we should have been of more use here. We came when we heard the horn – but too late, it seems. I fear you have taken deadly hurt.’_

The attack came upon them as they were searching for Sam and Frodo, and after they had lost both Merry and Pippin. Yet neither of them was unprepared; Elves, it seemed, also went about armed and ready for battle. 

Gimli was immediately glad, at the first surge of Orcs, to have Legolas by his side. He felled many with his arrows, and those he did not were dead from Gimli’s axe as soon as they came in range of it. It was nearly as good as having another Dwarf—better, as they caught each other’s rhythm almost immediately and it soon became clear that their fighting styles complemented each other.

Then Boromir’s horn blew, and they rushed towards it, but had to fight their way through. Without a word, they changed tactics to cut a path in a single direction. It was slow, but they made progress.

The rush of Orcs had slowed, they had laid waste to almost all of them in range, and they were nearly to the location of the horn’s sound, when Legolas said, warningly, “This is my last arrow,” and shot it into the neck of an oncoming Orc. Gimli had no time to worry, however, before Legolas’s knife was in his hand, darting and slashing as quickly as Gimli’s own axe. Their rhythm changed, but did not falter—Legolas was just as deadly with the knife, and Gimli adjusted seamlessly to fighting with another close-range fighter.

He had no time to think of what this meant, for just as the Orcs seemed to all fade or perish away, they reached the glen where they’d heard Boromir’s horn—and stopped suddenly, both immediately overcome by what they saw there.

Through grief and shock, they debated what to do next, until Legolas rightly said that they should first tend to their fallen friend, and in the process also sort through the remains of their fallen foes.

Gimli did not relish this task, for Orcs were even more disturbing to gaze upon in death. He had slain many on this journey, but never had to look at them closely afterwards. Some of them were pale gray, coloring seen on no other creature in Middle-Earth, vaguely sickly-looking yet strong in the limbs. Others were unnaturally pale, almost translucent, with blue veins showing through their skin, and wide eyes, colored so light blue that they were almost white. Underneath their armor, then, were gaping luminous eyes—and grasping, over-large hands that seemed built to take what they pleased as violently as possible.

The Orcs that Aragorn said came from Isengard were pale once, but looked as if they had been seared all over, with red and raw skin that flaked and oozed, as though they had been exposed to fire and sun too long and it would damage them forever, even if they stayed in darkness. Their eyes were wide also, but entirely black with no pupils. Gimli had never so deeply wished to finish the job and burn them all to ashes. Was there more fire in Isengard even than Mordor, that Saruman wanted his minions to appear as eternally burning horrors?

At least their search did not prove futile, for they found the hobbit’s knives, and Legolas obtained new arrows. Aragorn, in ranger fashion, wished to read the riddle of the Orcs, while their dead friend was still in need of a burial—and even when Gimli turned his focus away, worried over their course.

“Maybe there is no right choice,” said Gimli, for in his heart this was what he feared. But at last they fell into silence creating a bier on which to carry Boromir, and he felt a small portion of the weight of sadness brought by _atkât._

He saw Legolas look at his face, and understand immediately. When Aragorn would have spoken again, Legolas laid a hand on his arm and shook his head, looking at Gimli. Aragorn could not have understood why, but he stayed silent and did not ask, and unspeakable gratitude filled Gimli’s heart. He looked his thanks at Legolas, who nodded back. And so, in silence broken only with instructions and as little conversation as possible, as was appropriate and respectful, they lifted Boromir’s body onto the bier and carried him to the water.

He and Legolas then turned away together to go retrieve boats, leaving Aragorn to keep watch.  
  


_At the water-side Aragorn remained, watching the bier, while Legolas and Gimli hastened back on foot to Parth Galen. It was a mile or more, and it was some time before they came back, paddling two boats swiftly along the shore._

As they walked in silence, with nothing else to do, Legolas found that grief hit him suddenly, as though he had been hit in the chest. He took a deep breath, shuddering, and Gimli looked up at him. Seeing his face, he seemed to understand, and reached up to grip his hand.

For a moment, they stood that way, heads bowed, uncertainty and fear and grief overtaking them.

Then Legolas sighed, releasing—something—out of him, and relaxed his grip. Gimli squeezed once, then let go of his hand.

He missed the weight and warmth of it almost immediately, but he was too full of sorrow to think about it much longer.

Another pang hit him, and—and he could not help but speak.

“They took the hobbits,” he said. “Gimli—what will become of them?”

He knew it sounded empty, lost, not befitting someone of his age and stature. But right now, he couldn’t pretend to be anything but afraid.

“I don’t know,” said Gimli. He also looked lost. They were lost together, but that was no comfort. “I don’t—I don’t know what we should do.”

They stared at each other long, while Legolas tried and generally failed not to imagine the fate that awaited their young friends if they did not go after them.

Then Gimli took a deep, steadying breath. “It is as we told Aragorn,” he said. “We must tend to Boromir first. We must do one thing at a time; it is the only thing we can do, right now.”

“Yes,” said Legolas. “Yes, I know.”

Gimli looked at him long. “It will not make the fear subside. But we must.” He made a sign, as Legolas had not seen him do in days. Legolas tried not to look curious, but he must have failed, for Gimli sighed. “It means _family_ ,” he said. “Or, something like that, but the word in the Common Tongue is close enough.”

“You did not have to tell me,” said Legolas.

“I know,” said Gimli. “Yet it makes it harder, that you do not press me to know. I—I do not like having secrets. From you.” He made the sign again.

Legolas looked long into his eyes, but he could say nothing more, for there was nothing he wanted to say that would be appropriate, not here. Not now. Instead, he nodded, hoping Gimli would read the meaning. He wished he could take Gimli’s hand again—he wished that the height difference between them would not make it so uncomfortable. He settled instead for resting his hand on Gimli’s shoulder, as he had done so many times now when he felt the same urge.

This time, Gimli reached up to hold it there, and they walked like this, with Gimli’s arm crossed over his chest, his hand gripping Legolas’s hand on his shoulder.

It was a good compromise.

They continued on like this, falling back into silence, and though the touch was a comfort beyond words, Legolas realized with a wave of anxiety that he and Aragorn would have to sing a farewell song for Boromir, and they had not spoken of it at all. He had learned some of the appropriate poetic forms from Boromin in Lórien, a lesson which now seemed horribly prophetic. But he did not know which one Aragorn would want to use—and as with Gandalf’s death, he found himself blocked off from song by grief, and now, this time, fear.

He took a deep breath.

When Gandalf died, he had joined Gimli in silence. Then he had found some measure of strength to translate Frodo and Sam’s song. And then he had learned Boromir’s song forms and how to fill them in. It had not opened the floodgates of song, but he had been able to compose at least one in the Gondorian manner.

Perhaps he could do that this time too. But first, he needed to let the silence surround him. And there was no better companion with whom to be silent. He focused again on Gimli’s touch, on his sturdy presence by his side, and tried to find a measure of peace.

When they reached the boats, there were only two—Gimli’s hand fell from his, and Legolas removed it reluctantly from his shoulder. Gimli’s face was shaken, and he broke the silence, seeming to decide that this was a worthy reason to do so.

“What do you think happened?” he said

Legolas shook his head. “I cannot say. This is a riddle for our ranger to read; it is beyond my skill.”

“We can at least say no Orcs have been here,” said Gimli. “For everything lies undisturbed. Shall we at least look for the other boat? Perhaps it came unmoored, but is nearby.”

Legolas looked at the water’s bank, thinking. “Very well,” he said. “But let us be careful not to disturb the ground, or any tracks that may have been left.”

They searched, but found nothing, and did not want to spend too long looking when Aragorn would be able to learn more. Without discussion, they walked the long way around to reach the boats, veering away from the short route that would be full of tracks. Legolas did not think his feet would disturb much, but Gimli’s heavy boots surely would, and in any case it was better if they both left the scene as pristine as possible for Aragorn.

They each took a boat, and began to make their way back.

As Legolas paddled, feeling strangely alone in his boat, he remembered that Boromir had in fact told him of one of the songs used commonly for a great warrior who died in battle a long way from home. It used the scheme of one who asked for news of the fallen one from the winds—all except the East Wind, which Gondorians did not ask for news.

He let out a slow breath of relief. He remembered the words that were set, and which parts needed to be filled in, for he had taken time to commit them to memory.

Truly the Dwarves were full of wisdom, for their sacred silence had cleared his thoughts and allowed him to find even a few words. Mentally, he began composing a verse he knew he would be asked to sing.  
  


_For a while the three companions remained silent, gazing after him. Then Aragorn spoke. ‘They will look for him from the White Tower,’ he said, ‘but he will not return from mountain or from sea.’ Then slowly he began to sing._

Gimli stood in silence, listening to the voices of his companions. He had also listened to Legolas and Aragorn exchange low words about who should sing what verse of their song; they did not ask him to do so, and he did not volunteer. Dwarves spent longer composing songs than Men, and much longer than Elves. He had not learned the Gondorian forms with Legolas, being still too desirous of silence to attempt to learn a song, even an easy one. And he would not sing a lament for Boromir with only one voice, here above ground in the sunlight, even if he could find the words.

Moreover, he did not begrudge the chance to hear Legolas’s voice, which even in sorrow was beautiful. He also did nothing to hide his tears, for the sadness he had carried on his shoulders now spilled forth. They had lost another on this journey—and one had already been too many.

Legolas, as he sung, saw him weep, and for a moment he rested his paddle, to reach forward and put his hand on Gimli’s shoulder. He had offered this touch more and more frequently; Gimli did not know why, but he did not wish for him to ever stopped. He grasped Legolas’s hand quickly, before releasing it so that Legolas could return to his labor. But the touch, as always, was a comfort.

When they were finished, at last turning away from the gray shore, Aragorn came to the riddle of the boats, and read it almost with ease. Gimli said aloud that there was little hope in either of their courses of action, but he still felt something like it bloom when Aragorn at last decided to rescue Merry and Pippin—it would be a great task, but a noble one, and one that he was suited to.

He looked at Legolas, who set his jaw and nodded grimly back at him.

They would not abandon their companions.  
  


_‘Well, after them!’ said Gimli. ‘Dwarves too can go swiftly, and they do not tire sooner than Orcs. But it will be a long chase: they have a long start.’_

_‘Yes,’ said Aragorn, ‘we shall all need the endurance of Dwarves. But come! With hope or without hope we will follow the trail of our enemies. And woe to them, if we prove the swifter! We will make such a chase as shall be accounted a marvel among the Three Kindreds: Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Forth the Three Hunters!’_

_Like a deer he sprang away. Through the trees he sped. On and on he led them, tireless and swift, now that his mind was at last made up. The woods about the lake they left behind. Long slopes they climbed, dark, hard-edged against the sky already red with sunset. Dusk came. They passed away, grey shadows in a stony land._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight apologies for featuring a "the scene in a teen girl movie where they have a slumber party and talk about boys"-esque section. Please blame Merry for being nosy, or put it down to everyone being comfortable enough around each other to talk romance. I tried to keep it short.
> 
> Every piece of Shire gossip in this chapter is canon or a slight tweaking of canon. Zero apologies to Tolkien for making Pippin's unmarried second cousin gay, or for making hobbits polyamorous. I hope he's enjoying spinning violently in his grave. Or that he's realized I'm right and I should say it.
> 
> Also this chapter is still titled "they're on a boat motherfucker don't you EVER forget" in my head and you're welcome for that information.
> 
> Anyway I very much enjoyed writing this, at least during the times when it wasn't wildly intimidating. I'm beginning work on Two Towers and will post it when it is complete. If you'd like to follow my trials and tribulations while writing, I'm at [windandwater](https://windandwater.tumblr.com/) on tumblr and my writing-based dramatics are under the tag "[adventures in writing](https://windandwater.tumblr.com/tagged/adventures-in-writing)". Thank you for reading!


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